Lightning hits landing system at Mumbai airport

Mumbai: Tuesday's thundershowers accompanied by vicious lightning rendered the all-weather instrument-landing system (ILS) of Mumbai airport useless, the first time this has happened since the deluge of July 26, 2005.As a result 11 flights were diverted while others were delayed by at least 45 minutes.
"As the glide path of the ILS on runway 27 of main runway 09:27 was not working, nine flights were diverted to Ahmedabad airport between 7:45pm and 9pm," a spokesperson for Mumbai International Airport Limited (Mial) said. (A source, however, said 11 flights were diverted: six Air India, one Kingfisher, one Jet, one GoAir, one SpiceJet, and a chartered flight.)
The lightning was so severe that it affected the lightning arrester barriers in the ILS. The problem was rectified by Wednesday morning by engineers of the Airports Authority of India, which installs and maintains the systems at airports across India.
Even secondary runway 14 of 14:32 could not be used on Tuesday owing to the rains.
24/09/09 Naveeta Singh/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Sep 2009