By IANS,
New Delhi : Nearly 40 domestic and international flights to the national capital were diverted or cancelled Saturday, leaving thousands of passengers stranded as dense fog and faulty runway instruments made landings and takeoffs difficult.
The visibility on the runways at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport fell below 125 metres against the minimum 150 metres required for a flight to take off or land, compounding the difficulty in managing air movements.
The visibility dropped to zero metres in the city early Saturday.
“We are trying to sort out the snag in what we call the runway visual range instrument,” said V. Soma Sundaram, spokesperson for the Airports Authority of India.
“Over 30 domestic and nine international flights have been cancelled or diverted. At least three international flights, including Air India’s London-Delhi AI-112, were diverted to Mumbai,” he added.
The other six were diverted to Jaipur.
“The CAT-III B instrument landing system that provides visibility data to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) could not be used due to a fault in the RVR (runway visual range) instrument,” said another official.
The national capital Saturday recorded a minimum of 8.4 degrees Celsius, a notch above the average this time of the season.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast dense fog and clouds in Delhi Sunday with the minimum temperature hovering around 9 degrees Celsius.
Conditions at IGI, according to officials, have however started to “normalise”.
“Operations have started and we are trying to ensure that the flight operations are normalised as early as possible. We are not sure by when we would be able to bring back the diverted flights.”
The situation was no better at the city’s railway stations, where passengers and their relatives had to wait for hours as over 50 incoming trains were delayed by more than five hours.
“My mother was coming by the Vaishali Express. The train was scheduled to come at 8 a.m. but has been delayed by eight hours,” said an upset Ajit Singh.
Some passengers also complained of inadequate information from the railway officials.
“I called up the railway enquiry before coming to the station and they did not tell me that my train has been delayed by six hours. I have no option but to wait on the platform in this chilly weather with my two small children,” said Reena Singh, who was headed to Allahabad.
Motorists also had a tough time negotiating the roads in the capital in the dense fog early morning.
“It was so difficult to drive in the morning as I was not able to see anything a few metres away. I started early from my home in Dwarka but it took me an extra hour to reach my south Delhi office,” said Rajat Arora, a marketing professional.