Fog leaves Surat airport ‘blinded’ for nearly 4 hours

SURAT: Transportation through air and railway was adversely affected due to dense fog on Saturday morning. In fact, at one point in time, Surat airport suffered zero visibility leading to delay in flight operations for up to three hours.
Total five flights got delayed, including two arriving in the city and three for departure. A Mumbai flight that was supposed to take off at 6.30am could leave only at 8.30am.
Among the other affected flights, one from Delhi arrived at 11.51am instead of its scheduled arrival time of 8.25am. Due to its late arrival, the flight returned only at 12.40pm instead of its scheduled departure at 9am.
A flight from Jaipur arrived at 11.08am almost 50 minutes late from its scheduled arrival of 10.20am. Due to the late arrival, the fight could take off only at 11.45am for its onward journey to Goa.
Surat airport director Aman Saini, who was out for some function, however, refused to comment on how many flights got delayed and why.
“The airport suffered a complete blackout for nearly four hours on Saturday morning. Airport authorities did not share the fog details on its social media platform for the benefit of passengers,” alleged Rajesh Modi, an aviation activist. “Landing from Vesu end of the runway was not possible despite the Instrument Landing System installed on that end. Since there is no ILS on Dumas end it was also not useful today,” Modi added. Around 15 trains passing through south Gujarat were also affected due to the fog and got delayed by 15 to 45 minutes. “The train movement was affected due to poor visibility but improved later in the day,” said a railway official.