250 flights hits due to fog in IGI Airport

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The first curse of opaque fog this year cause havoc on air operations at the IGI airport on Wednesday hitting over 250 flights and causing inconvenience to flyers.

At least 207 domestic and international flights were postponed by five to six hours as the runway visibility remained below the prescribed minima for low visibility take-off of 125 and 150 meters for different types of aircraft.

Four flights, two each of Jet Airways and SpiceJet, were sidetracked to Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Indore while 17 flights were cancelled, an airport officia has told. Though the airport was witnessing thin fog since 8.30 p.m. last night, the flight operations were not affected.

But the situation started to depreciate after 1.40 a.m., when blinding fog enveloped the airport, reducing the runway visibility to less than 100 meters. The situation remained same around 10 AM, when the fog dissolute and visibility increased.

Practically there was no flight operation between 1.40 a.m. and 9.40 a.m. as the runway visibility float between 75 and 100 meters for new runway (29/11) and between 100 to 125 for main runway (28/10), below the prescribed norm. However, flights arriving here were able to land using the CAT-III B instrument landing system (ILS).

The fog was so dense that the general visibility had also dipped to less than 50 meter, an airport official said, adding the low visibility procedure was implemented on main runway at 1.46 AM and on new runway from 3.45 a.m. It was completed at around 11.20 a.m.

Met department has predicted more dense fog for the next few days. “The visibility may reduce to 200 meters in CAT-III dense fog from 1.30 a.m. tomorrow, and it may further reduce to below 50 meters from 4.30 a.m. but may recover up to 400 meters from 9.30 a.m.,” the airport Met Department has said.

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