Dense fog grounds airport, fliers stuck

New Delhi: IGI Airport painted a sorry picture yet again this fog season with all operations suspended for almost nine hours on Saturday, leading to over 200 delays, 18 diversions and 23 cancellations through the day. This time, even as airlines were prepared to undertake low visibility CAT-III operations, one part of the runway visual range (RVR) system of both runways collapsed, leaving them unfit for low visibility operations.
RVR, essential for indicating visibility and aiding pilots in navigating aircraft, is monitored at three points on the runway and is mandatory for CAT-III operations. On Saturday, the end RVR readings — on Dwarka side — of both the new and main runways could not be generated and once visibility fell below 350 m — CAT-III level, all operations had to be suspended. While officials claimed the new runway had been serviced, sources said that on Saturday night when visibility again plummeted, the RVR indicator had stopped working. ‘‘Landing on the new runway from the Vasant Kunj side is prohibited after 10.30pm. However, since the indicator on the other side was not working, the curfew had to be violated. The Vasant Kunj side is also prone to frequent pockets of highly dense fog so it is not very reliable either,’’ said sources.
The Dwarka side indicator of the main runway could not be serviced at all and the Met department had promised to take manual readings to assist the air traffic control.
However, with nobody willing to step out onto the runway at night, sources reported that the Met DG had to be asked to intervene before readings were provided after a gap of two hours. The surface movement radar was also reportedly causing problems.
An additional system for the main runway was being brought in from Pune but that was likely to reach Delhi only on Sunday morning.
On Saturday morning, airlines carried out boarding of flights as per schedule though that left several hundred passengers holed up inside aircraft for many hours.
03/01/10 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2010