Flight Diverted To Bhopal Citing Fog, ATC Contradicts Pilot

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A flight from Mumbai to the city was diverted to Bhopal on Tuesday morning by the pilot who cited fog as the reason for the diversion yet another flight landed safely and without any disturbance at the city airport just 10 minutes after the diversion of the Mumbai flight. 

A peculiar situation arose at the Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport on Tuesday over diversion of a flight coming from Mumbai which instead of landing at the city airport was diverted to Bhopal with the pilot citing fog as the reason.

On the other hand, Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials said that there was not so much fog that merited the diversion of the flight. To add to the mystery the next flight landed 10 minutes later. However, the diverted flight returned to the city airport from Bhopal at 10 o'clock.

According to the information received from the airport, Indigo Airlines flight 6E-294 from Mumbai to the city lands here at 8 am and goes back to Mumbai at 8.35 am.

This morning also the flight reached the city on time. The pilot tried to land the plane, but instead of landing, he took the plane up in the air again. The pilot contacted ATC and said that due to low visibility, he is diverting the plane to Bhopal. After this, the plane was taken to Bhopal.

After a short halt in Bhopal, the flight reached the city airport at 9.50 am and left for Mumbai at 10.15 am with the passengers. During this time, more than 150 passengers on board the aircraft had to face discomfort and trouble.  

According to ATC officials 550 metres visibility is enough for the plane, an Airbus to land and at that time the visibility was 600 meters despite the fog. After this flight, another IndiGo flight coming from Bangalore also landed easily at 8.10 am.