Bhubaneswar: Poor visibility due to dense fog hampered air traffic to and from Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar with two flights, including an international flight, being diverted to other airports on Wednesday.
According to airport sources, these were the first mid-air diversions of city-bound flights before touchdown this winter.
While Indigo’s Singapore-Bhubaneswar flight was diverted to Shamshabad Airport in Hyderabad at 7.04 am while very close to the city sky, the Delhi-Bhubaneswar flight of the same airline was diverted to Kolkata at 8.15 am. The latter flight with 216 on board, including the crew, returned to Bhubaneswar after a 15-minute stopover in Kolkata once visibility improved later in the day. The flight from Delhi landed here at 10 am.
The Singapore-Bhubaneswar flight with 63 passengers, however, remained grounded at Shamshabad airport, and arrived here at 12 pm.
Airport director Prasanna Pradhan said that the the flights were diverted as the Runway Visual Range (RVR) was limited to 150 metres due to fog. The visibility began to improve, reaching 350 metres with an RVR of 600 metres at around 8 am. “Wednesday’s was the first case of diversion. Because of fog in Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad, flights originating from there also couldn’t take off on time resulting in delay,” he added.
Notably, low visibility owing to very dense fog brought traffic to a crawl in Khurda, Dhenkanal and Chandbali in Bhadrak district of Odisha, where visibility level was reduced to 20-40 metres, on Wednesday morning. Thick blanket of fog also engulfed twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, lowering visibility to 50 and 100 metres, respectively.
The state is likely to experience foggy mornings till 8.30 am on January 12 with yellow warning issued for several districts.
