Heavy fog delays flights at IGI (Second Lead)

NEW DELHI - Heavy Christmas day fog that engulfed the capital Saturday delayed a number of international and domestic flights at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here by several hours, an official said.

The fog, first of such intensity this winter, also brought down the day temperature to 19 degrees Celsius, three notches below the normal for this time of the season. However, the minimum temperature was a notch above the average at 8.2 degrees Celsius.

In all, 12 flights which were either to depart or land were affected, among them flights from Frankfurt, London and other destinations, according to the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) official.

He said that despite low visibility procedures (LVP) being enforced for eight hours and six minutes, 226 flights were operated during the period under various ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) like CAT (category) - I, II, III A and III B.

“During the LVP, one international and 12 domestic flights were diverted,” DIAL’s official statement said.

Fog descended in the wee hours and general visibility dropped below the required level of 50 metres, forcing the airport authorities to implement the LVP.

“Fog appeared at 1.30 a.m. when visibility was at 700 metres and remained the same till 4.30 a.m. At around 7.30 a.m., the visibility fell below the 50-metre-mark,” an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said.

The DIAL official further said that the technologically superior CAT (category) IIIB ILS, which allows compliant aircraft and trained pilots to land even when the runway visibility is at 50 metres, could not cope up with the conditions below that level.

The weather officials have forecast more fog on Sunday but skies are expected to remain clear later during the day.

The maximum and minimum temperatures Sunday are expected to hover around 21 degrees Celsius and 7 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Delhi, which experiences heavy fog from the third week of December to early February, had not experienced any significant fog till Friday, according to the IMD.

The coldest day of the season so far was Dec 22 with a minimum temperature of 5.2 degrees.