BENGALURU: Thunder bearing clouds which caused wind shears at the Kempegowda International Airport area resulted in diversion of 11 incoming flights to Bengaluru to Chennai on Sunday night. Out of these 11 flights, four of them were international ones.
A briefing officer at the Aerodrome Meteorological department told TNIE, "The thunder-bearing clouds at the airport caused turbulence above the Air Traffic Control at KIA. They in turn caused wind shear, which refers to crosswinds having a speed of 20 to 25 knots. Both the North and South Runways are located close to the ATC. It is not safe for flights to land or take off during that period due to Tailwinds."
"Flights were in a holding pattern (going in circles above the airport) with some of them even circling it twice until they finally took off to Chennai," she added.
A spokesperson of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) said, "Landings stopped from 11.18 pm to 11.54 pm due to heavy weather and lightning impacting 11 flights totally. Four of them were international ones."
Flights suffered two and half hours to three and half hours delay in reaching their destinations due to the diversion.
Diverted international flights
Thai flight from Bangkok (TG 325); Thai Lion Air from Bangkok (SL 216); Air France from Paris (AF 194) and KLM flight from Amsterdam (KL 879).
Diverted domestic flights
The flights that were rerouted to Chennai were Air India flights from Mumbai (AI 585) and Delhi (AI 512), Akasa Air flights from Goa (QP 1397) and Mumbai (QP 1341); Vistara flights from Delhi (UK 807); Air Alliance flight from Goa (91 548) and Air Asia India flight from Guwahati (I5 821) to Bengaluru after a stopover at Chennai.
This Air Asia flight left Guwahati at 6.25 pm and reached Chennai at 9.25 pm. It took off at the scheduled time of 10.05 pm from Chennai and had to reach Bengaluru by 11 pm. However, it was rerouted back to Chennai due to weather conditions at KIA and finally reached Bengaluru at 2.27 am, a 3 hr and 27 minute delay, revealed flight tracking websites.
On May 10, a total of 17 flights had to be diverted.
When asked if the CAT-III system (navigation system that permits landing during inclement weather conditions) ar the airport could not stop such diversions, an airport source said that this comes into effect only in 'conditions of poor visibility.'
"In the face of lightning and thunderstorms, it has no role to play. It is the pilot of the airline who decides landing would be dangerous to passengers or might damage the aircraft and takes the call to divert it," he added.
