The runway visual range (RVR) fell to below 50 metres, delaying over 200 flights.

All flight operations had to be put on hold till about 9.30 am. “No flights took off or landed at the airport between 7.30 and 9.40 am, as the visibility reduced to below 50 metres due to a dense fog that began to descend around 7 am,” an airport official said.

Low Visibility Procedures (LVP) were initiated at the airport around 6 am and lasted for at least five hours, during which only 62 flights, including 46 domestic and 16 international, operated. As many as 22 flights, 16 domestic and 6 international, had to be diverted to other domestic destinations like Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

While flight delays lasted from 30 minutes to over 7 hours, at least four flights were cancelled and another 103 had to be rescheduled. A huge backlog of flights aggravated the situation.

Caught off guard
The approach road to the domestic airport saw heavy traffic till about 3 pm. Even the quick reaction team (QRT) of the CISF, deployed at Delhi airport as a security measure in case of a terror threat or emergency, found it hard to make its way through the traffic.

“A lot of passengers were approaching the airport at the same time, after visibility conditions improved around 9.30 am,” a senior CISF officer said.

The domestic terminal’s arrival lounge also witnessed a lot of chaos, while the air traffic controller reported air traffic congestion, with several scheduled flights waiting for clearance.

Sudden fog
Visibility conditions were normal thorough out the night. “There was no fog at night because the temperature was high and the winds were strong. But the winds became calm in the morning, while the temperature came down to 9.1 degrees Celsius, and the humidity was 100 per cent — all conditions favourable for dense fog formation,” R K Jenamani, director-in-charge of the IGI Met department, said.

He said it was normal for such conditions to develop between January-end and early March. “This is called radiation-type fog, which never develops in the night,” Jenamani said.

The IGI Met department predicts more such fog — with the specific characteristic of developing early in the morning, when the temperatures cool and the winds become calm — till early March.

‘Can be handled better’
“Fog creates problems even at Heathrow Airport in London and visibility is a huge issue there. But people there know how to handle the situation,” Elizabeth, an NRI from London, said.