2 flights circle fog-hit Lucknow 28 times in 2 days, fail to land; returns to IGI airport

LUCKNOW: For two winter mornings, dense fog over Lucknow turned the skies into a maze for an Air India Express Boeing 737 MAX 8 operating flight from Delhi.

On January 2 and January 4, the aircraft circled the city 28 times, spending around 171 minutes hovering above Lucknow, only to return to Delhi without landing.

On January 4, IX217 flight reached Lucknow at 6.42 am. But the runway visual range (RVR) was only 125 metres, far below the DGCA-mandated minimum of 150 metres required for a safe landing.

Hoping the fog would clear, the pilots kept the aircraft in a holding pattern. For 78 minutes till 8.01 am, the jet looped over the city 11 times. When conditions didn't improve, the aircraft turned back, landing in Delhi at 8.55 am.

SalamAir OV705 from Muscat landed over 90 minutes late at 5.16 am, while two Air India Express flights - IX2048 from Bengaluru and IX1026 from Mumbai - arrived one to three hours behind schedule.

On January 2, IX2171 faced nearly identical conditions. It reached Lucknow at 6.18 am, and for the next 93 minutes, it circled over the city 17 times, waiting for a break in the fog that never came.

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