This Article is From Jan 15, 2013

Fog affects 75 flights at Indira Gandhi International airport

Fog affects 75 flights at Indira Gandhi International airport
New Delhi: Fog again disrupted operations at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on Tuesday, affecting the schedule of around 75 domestic and international flights.

Around 70 flights originating from here were delayed either due to weather conditions at the airport and at the destination or due to operational reasons, airport official said. Five flights remained cancelled due to same reasons.

No flight was diverted on Tuesday unlike Monday, when the IGI airport witnessed its worst fog of this season which affected the schedule of around 160 domestic and international flights, they added.

Fog started to descend over the airport last night around 9 PM forcing the authorities to implement low visibility procedures (LVP) on the airport's two operational runways -- main (28/10) and third (29/11).

The visibility on the third runway remained low through the night and in the morning. Though visibility dropped to 50 metres between 1 AM and 4 AM, the third runway was open for operations for flight landing with the assistance of CAT-IIIB instrument landing system (ILS), which permits a CAT-IIIB compliant plane to land when the visibility is upto 50 metres.

The general visibility dropped below 50 metres between 3.30 AM and 4.30 AM.

The visibility on the main runway was around 1,000 metres at one end, but it dropped to 50 metres between 2 AM and 3 AM on the other end. Flights were operating with the help of CAT-IIIB ILS, they said.

A total of 205 flights operated during the LVP period, which ended at 10:20 AM on Tuesday, using various categories of ILS. 125 flights landed supported with CAT-I, 12 with CAT-II and 15 with CAT-III ILS. 153 flights took-off in this period.

The Met office has predicted fog which may affect flight operations as the visibility may reduce to 200 metres in the morning.

On Monday , dense fog had affected the schedule of around 160 flights the IGI airport remained shut for  about one-and-a-half hours due to poor visibility and subsequent backlog of departing flights.

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