Smog grounds flights

Kolkata: City experienced the first major smog this year when visibility dropped to near zero on Saturday morning, grounding flights till after 8 am. With over a dozen flights held up, the terminal building was crowded many times beyond capacity, leading to a near collapse of facilities.
According to the airport met office (AMO), visibility drop at 5.40 am was sharp as a thick shroud of smog enveloped Dum Dum. While the category-II instrument landing system allows operations till 300 m visibility, it fell below the mark and dipped to 100 m around 6 am. Between 6.30 and 7 am, it further nose-dived to 50 m and below. Between 7 and 7.30 am, the smog began to clear and visibility improved to 100 m.
The improvement was steady thereafter and by 7.50 am, the met office gave the nod for operations to resume as visibility touched 800 m. Jet Airways flight to Mumbai, that was scheduled to depart at 6.20 am, took off at 8.15 am. Others followed suit in a mad scramble for takeoff.
14/11/10 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2010