New Delhi: Dense fog once again played havoc
with the schedule of around 175 flights at the Indira Gandhi International airport on Friday.
Around 144 flights were delayed, 10 were cancelled and
four were diverted as fog enveloped the airport early this
morning. Flights were delayed by upto five hours, causing
inconvinence to passengers.
As fog began to descend around 0130 AM, visibility dipped
to a low of 800 metres forcing authorities to implement low
visibility procedures.
Visibility dropped further at dawn and hovered between 75
to 100 metres between 5.30AM to 8.30 AM, affecting the
departure of flights.
Since, the visibility was less than 125 metres, below the
required minima for low visibility take-off (LVTO) of 125
metres and 150 metres for different types of aircraft, no
flights could take-off, an airport official said.
However, as visibility improved, some flights took off
but again operations were stalled when visibility dipped
again, he said.
Two Jet Airway flights from Doha and Abu Dhabi and one
Kingfisher flight from Dubai were diverted to Jaipur while one
BlueDart cargo flight from Chennai was diverted to Ahmedabad.
According to sources, the flights were diverted as the
pilots were not trained to operate a CAT-III B plane or the
plane was not CAT-III B complaint, which is essential for
operation in low visibility when CAT-III B operations are on.
Three flights were cancelled due to inclement weather
conditions at Delhi, three others due to poor weather at
destination and four others by the airlines due to operational
reasons.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, December 24, 2011, 00:31