Spice Jet does night landing in Port Blair

Low cost carrier Spice Jet became the first airline to perform a civilian night landing at Port Blair.
Its flight SG-251 from Kolkata carried out the first ever civilian airliner night landing at Veer Savarkar International Airport at Port Blair on September 11 at 6.10pm, 50 minutes after sunset at 5.20pm, said a release issued by the carrier.
"Under the command of Capt.Gurcharan Arora and Capt. Ranbir Singh, SpiceJet’s 212-seater Boeing 737-900ER aircraft VT-SLD was greeted upon arrival by a grand water cannon salute, an aviation tradition to mark key milestones," added the release.
The aircraft later departed for Kolkata at 6.45pm as SG-261, thereby completing a cycle of landing and take-off from the Port Blair airport during the night time.
The upgradation of the runway, lighting and navigation systems undergone at the Port Blair airport recently has paved the way for attaining commercial night flying capability, something that had been sought by the residents of Andaman and Nicobar islands, and by visitors, for a long time.