Kolkata: Low visibility due to heavy fog stalled flight operations for about two hours in the morning at the Netaji Subhas Chandra International (NSCBI) airport, Kolkata, leading to delay in about 60 flights.
Sources in the airport said that the dense fog compelled the airport authorities to implement Low Visibility Procedures (LVP) from 7 am. No flight traffic movement could take place from 7 am to 9 am which is two hours. This led to delays of 60 flights, including 30 arrivals and 30 departures.
It was further learnt that seven flights to Kolkata had to be diverted to other airports such as Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Hyderabad and Nagpur. The airport authorities, however, made all arrangements to help the stranded passengers at the terminal.
The visibility conditions for landing and departure improved after 9 am, allowing the first flight to arrive at the airport from Dubai at 9.04 am.
Millennium Post had reported on January 6 that Kolkata airport is the only one in the Eastern and North Eastern Region which is equipped with category (CAT) III-B Instrument Landing System (ILS) which helped the airport land four flights on Sunday which were bound for Bangladesh but diverted to Kolkata due to poor visibility at Dhaka and Chittagong airports.
However, the CAT III-B system also has its limitations since it helps a CAT III-B trained pilot to operate in a visibility range of 175-50 metres but not below 50. On Monday morning, the visibility dropped below 50m. This is below the permissible limit for commercial aircraft operations.
The last flight that departed from the airport was at 3.35 am after which the visibility eventually dropped to near zero.
The airport authorities had implemented LVP which ensures a safe grounding by limiting vehicle movement and clearance before landing and take-off of the aircraft.