Early morning fog causes several flight delays

New Delhi: Flight movement at IGI Airport was badly hit on Saturday due to dense fog during the morning hours when the runway visibility range fell to 125 m. Passengers of several airlines faced long delays. Moreover, 180 passengers of a Bangalore-bound SpiceJet flight were stuck in an aircraft for over six hours. First, their flight couldn't take off because of fog, and then a technical fault developed in the aircraft forcing the airline to swap aircrafts.
According to officials, SpiceJet flight SG-501 could not take off at 6.20 am as per scheduled since the general visibility dropped to less than 50 metres after fog enveloped the airport suddenly. Sources said that passengers spent nearly six hours in the aircraft before it finally took off at 12.30 pm. There was a further delay when the plane was caught in congestion due to heavy backlog of flights and no flights were allowed to land in Bangalore between 10 am-12 pm due to preparations for an air show that is to begin in the city shortly.
Following this, the aircraft developed some technical problem due to which passengers were shifted to another plane after three hours. "Besides the weather conditions and congestion, a technical snag forced us to swap aircrafts to ensure safety compliance. Passengers could not be de-boarded once the flight was on the runway due to security restrictions and were provided refreshments on board,'' said a SpiceJet spokersperson.
Sources added that 10 domestic and international flights were delayed after visibility dropped to 50 metres around 6.30 am and runway visibility range dipped to 125 metres well below the required minima of 150 metres for smooth flight operations. Some of the flights scheduled to depart before 6.30 am went as per schedule.
Airport officials added that before the fog descended, the general visibility was 400 metres while the runway visibility range was 2,000 metres for main runway and 500 metres for new runway.
08/02/09 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009