Dense fog causes mayhem at Delhi airport

Operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi were affected on Wednesday after dense fog partially disrupted the schedule of over 30 flights, including diversion of an international flight to Mumbai.

Air India's flight (AI 314) from Hong Kong was diverted to Mumbai, while seven flights were cancelled on Wednesday, either due to poor weather at destination or due to operational reasons.

Dense fog started to descend at the airport around 11 pm on Tuesday night and it thickened between 3.30 am and 5 am on Wednesday morning leading to drop in runway visibility to less than 25 metres at the third runway, forcing authorities to suspend operations on that runway, airport sources said.

Though fog affected the schedule of flights, operations largely remained normal as the main runway was operational through the night as the runway visibility was above the permissible limit of 150 metres for takeoff and as it is equipped with CAT-IIIB Instrument Landing System (ILS) at both ends so it can facilitate landing of aircraft even if runway visibility is upto meters, they added.

Dense fog had on Tuesday also played spoilsport for the fliers on New Year day as it disrupted operations at the airport, affecting over 100 flights.

Four international flights had to be diverted to Jaipur and Mumbai after visibility dropped to less 50 metres.