Freak fog at IGI: 13 flights cancelled,200 delayed

Over 150 flights were delayed by anywhere between 30 minutes to three hours. A Jet Airways flight from Abu Dhabi had to be diverted to Mumbai,while a SpiceJet and a Kingfisher flight,both from Mumbai,had to be diverted to Lucknow and Jaipur respectively,after runway visibility dropped to 50 metres between 6.30 and 9.30 am,an official said.

“Airlines had to cancel 13 domestic flights to and from the city. Most of the flights scheduled to depart after 5.45 am were rescheduled,” he said.

Low visibility procedures (LVP) had to be initiated at the airport at 3 am,and remained in force till 12.30 pm,during which 112 flights operated using various categories of the instrument landing system (ILS).

Most flights scheduled to depart early in the morning were delayed as the runway visibility dropped to 75 metres while general visibility remained below 50 metres for about five hours. The situation started to improve only after 10 am,when the visibility improved to 800 metres.

“It was one of the freak cases of fog in January. The forecast was given out by 8 pm itself on Sunday,which resulted in better fog management by the airlines. Only three flights had to be diverted. Conditions like early morning rain increased the moisture content,and very calm wind at night was conducive to fog formation,” said Dr RK Jenamani,director-in-charge of the IGI Met department.

“It was only radiation fog as temperatures fell below 7degrees Celsius,and wind speed from 8 knots to nil. Since the IMD fog monitoring and forecast system worked accurately,the total diversions was three flights. Similar freak dense fog cases in January and February last season had led to 25-30 flight diversions. In totality,the peak fog season has now ended,having recorded 55 hours of CAT-III dense fog,much below the average of 85 hours at IGI Airport,” he added.