CAT let down flight in light fog

ON THURSDAY, fog reduced runway visibility at the Delhi Airport to 150 metres ? enough for flights to land and take off using the recently installed Category III B Instrument Landing System. But that did not happen: nine flights were diverted, two cancelled, a dozen rescheduled and two dozen delayed.

ON THURSDAY, fog reduced runway visibility at the Delhi Airport to 150 metres — enough for flights to land and take off using the recently installed Category III B Instrument Landing System. But that did not happen: nine flights were diverted, two cancelled, a dozen rescheduled and two dozen delayed.

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Three Indian (Airlines) flights took off in the morning, assisted by the landing system. But no aircraft, including those with pilots trained for CAT III B ILS, landed for about 10 hours from midnight, pointing to the reluctance of the pilots to use the system.

Some pilots said they did not exactly trust the CAT III B ILS. They gave the example of an incident on December 25. A Canadian Airlines flight, which landed at the airport with the help of CAT III B, ended up with damaged wings.

A few years ago, the International Federation of Airline Pilots Association had declared the Delhi Airport unsafe. AAI officials, however, defended the landing system.