IGI airport grounded in zero visibility

New Delhi: After a one-day breather, flight operations at the IGI airport went into a disarray once again due to dense fog on Tuesday. Over 200 flights were delayed by up to four to five hours and another fifty flights were cancelled when a thick fog started to descend over the airport from the wee hours of Tuesday and went on till about 1:30 pm.
Sources said that this was probably the most intense fog of the season. It set in late — from 6 to 11 but during this time the runway visibility range (RVR) remained consistently below 100m. In fact, it fluctuated between 50m and 100m, stuck at 75m for a major period.
No flights could land even using the CAT-III B instrument landing system, as the minimum permissible limit to land under such conditions is 50m, while the limit for low visibility take-off is 150m.
According to airport sources, dense fog started covering the airport from around 5am forcing the authorities to implement low visibility procedures (LVP). Delhi’s airspace closure for an hour between 11.15am and 12.15pm for fly-past of Indian Air Force aircraft during the Republic Day parade added to the chaos. Officials said that visibility at the main runway dropped to 75m till LVP was finally lifted past noon. Similarly, at the new runway, visibility dropped to 50m by early Tuesday morning and even CAT-III B operations were not possible. "No flights have taken-off or landed after 8am as the runway visibility dropped to 50m on both the runways due to dense fog that enveloped the airport early this morning," said sources.
27/01/10 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2010