Bhubaneswar: Three early morning flights to the city were diverted to Calcutta today due to dense fog. The GoAir, IndiGo and Air India flights had originated from New Delhi.
Today's diversion was the first this winter owing to fog.
Sources at the local meteorological office said the visibility between 6am and 8am was around 50 metres making it impossible for flights to either land or take off.
While the two diverted flights flew into Bhubaneswar airport at 10am, the Air India flight from Delhi to Port Blair via Bhubaneswar did not return and instead, went directly to Port Blair.
"An aircraft usually needs a 1,200m visibility range. But today, as the early morning visibility was very low, the flights were diverted. Operations resumed later," airport director Sharad Kumar told The Telegraph.
The runway at Biju Patnaik Airport is equipped with a Category-I (CAT-I) landing facility. Aircraft equipped with a CAT-I landing device can land in adverse weather conditions here. But generally, the visibility range never goes down so low. Operations resumed when the weather situation improved around 10am.
09/12/14 Bibhuti Barik/The Telegraph
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Today's diversion was the first this winter owing to fog.
Sources at the local meteorological office said the visibility between 6am and 8am was around 50 metres making it impossible for flights to either land or take off.
While the two diverted flights flew into Bhubaneswar airport at 10am, the Air India flight from Delhi to Port Blair via Bhubaneswar did not return and instead, went directly to Port Blair.
"An aircraft usually needs a 1,200m visibility range. But today, as the early morning visibility was very low, the flights were diverted. Operations resumed later," airport director Sharad Kumar told The Telegraph.
The runway at Biju Patnaik Airport is equipped with a Category-I (CAT-I) landing facility. Aircraft equipped with a CAT-I landing device can land in adverse weather conditions here. But generally, the visibility range never goes down so low. Operations resumed when the weather situation improved around 10am.
09/12/14 Bibhuti Barik/The Telegraph
