BENGALURU: Four flights which were to land on one of the runways at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Thursday evening, failed to do so as crucial runway equipment had got damaged due to lightning, said airport sources. This, coupled with heavy rain, led to diversion of four flights from KIA to other airports.
The Runway Visual Range (RVR) equipment failure at runway (09L) which resulted in low visibility, ensured the diversion of arrivals from North Runway to South Runway. Four flights were diverted, two to Chennai, one to Hyderabad and one to Coimbatore, an official source said.
Due to this malfunctioning and bad weather, at least nine aircraft were in a holding pattern (hovering above the airport) at Bengaluru for more than an hour, causing air congestion. Rainfall for nearly 50mm was received within half an hour there.
An airport source said, “This damage to RVR happens very rarely. The strange part is that the authorities fixed the equipment. A flight tried to land again, but it started malfunctioning again.” TNIE had access to internal records which said, “RVR equipment unserviceable.” However, airport operator Bangalore International Airport Limited claimed there was no problem with the equipment.
A Kempegowda International Airport source said that five flights landed on South runway, but four flights were diverted as they could have run out of fuel if they continued to hover. Gofirst flight (G8 874) from Patna was diverted to Coimbatore, Indigo flights (6E 5186) from Delhi and Udaipur (6E 6093) were diverted to Chennai, and an Indigo flight (UK-756) from Guwahati was diverted to Hyderabad.