Indore: The sudden fall in visibility below 100 metres owing to dense fog hit the flight operation badly on Thursday morning. As many as four flights had to hover over the city sky for a total of 2.08 hours, including one flight of GoAir arriving from Kolkata which had to be diverted to Ahmadabad after circling the city sky for 38 minutes. Three departing flights also affected.
It is for the first time in the current Winter season such a dense fog prevailed at the city airport in the morning. In case visibility falls below the 100-metre mark, the Air Traffic Control Tower (ATC) does not allow any aircraft for landing and take-off.
Aryama Sanyal, Director Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport, informed that on Thursday morning the visibility fell below the 100-metre mark, thus we had to stop the landing and take-off of the flights, as a result, the movement of five arriving flights were affected. After 9.00 am the visibility improved from 100 meters and by 12.00 noon it reached to 1500 meter. GoAir’s flight (Go-295) from Kolkata to the city was diverted to Ahmedabad after hovering for 38 minutes over the city sky. Later, it arrived in the city.
Among the delayed flights was GoAir’s GoW-403 Banguluru to Indore which had to hover over the city’s sky for 2.08 hrs. As per the schedule, the flight arrived at 6.45 am but due to the poor visibility, it was not allowed to land here. Ultimately it landed at 9.16 am. Vistara’s Delhi-Indore Flight VTI-913 faced a delay of 1.09 hours including 1.05 hours hold over the city’s sky. Its scheduled arrival time is 8.15 am, but it could land at the airport at 9.24 am. Indigo’s Mumbai-Indore flight 6E-140 was delayed by 1.34 hours including 22 minutes hold over the city’s sky. IndiGo’s Goa-Indore flight 6E-252 was delayed 1 hour.
The operation of three departing flights also affected. IndiGo’s flight 6E-6013 departing to Delhi was delayed by 50 minutes. IndiGo’s other flight 6E-655 departing to Mumbai was delayed by 2 hrs. AirAsia’s flight I5-753 departing to Delhi was delayed by 1.45 hours.
