Thick fog envelopes Delhi, flight operations disrupted

Delhi was enveloped by fog with visibility in a few areas reduced to less than 10 metres.

Zee Media Bureau New Delhi: Delhi was enveloped by the first fog of the winter season on Monday morning with visibility dropping to around 400 metres at 8.30 am. The India Meteorological Department has, however, forecast a clear day ahead in the capital. The city`s minimum temperature settled at 8.8 degrees Celsius - average for this time of the year. Humidity at 8:30 am was 100 percent. A few trains coming to Delhi were running behind schedule, slowed down by dense fog. "No trains have been cancelled so far, but a few coming to Delhi and going further from here are now running behind schedule," a spokesperson for Northern Railway said. The weather also delayed the schedule of over 25 domestic and international flights at the IGI Airport here. According to an update from airport officials at 12 noon, nine flights with destinations to Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Lucknow were diverted. The flights were delayed as the runway visibility dropped to less than 50 metres, bringing landing and take-off to a halt for over an hour, an airport official said. This is the first fog of the winter season, which started to descend at the airport early in the morning, but as the day progressed it become dense. Flights scheduled to land at Delhi airport were asked to hover after the runway visibility dropped to less than 50 metres, the minimum visibility range for a CAT III B complaint aircraft to land in the poor visibility conditions. Around 10 planes, coming to Delhi where asked to hover, while one of the international flight from Amman was diverted, airport sources said. As the visibility increased to 75 metres on the main runway (28/11), some of the CAT-III B complaint aircraft were allowed to land but no flights were departing. The general visibility at the three runways were around 150 metres while the runway visibility was between 65 to 75 metres on all off them. The two runways of IGI airport are CAT-III B complaint, which means if the runway visibility is upto metres, flights can land. But for take-off, the minimum visibility is around 125 metres and 150 metres, depending upon the size of the aircraft. (With Agency inputs)