Delhi reels under worst fog since '10

New Delhi: Cold wave continued in the national capital, which experienced the worst fog since 2010 on Sunday night with maximum temperature settling at 19 degrees Celsius. The prevailing cold wave affected flight schedules and the Indira Gandhi airport was shut down till 5 am.

A thick fog enveloped the city on Moday morning too, a day after 40 trains coming towards Delhi were rescheduled. Not just Delhi, even neighbouring places saw a drop in temperature.

Kashmir and Srinagar experienced minus 4 degrees Celsius temperature while mercury dropped in Punjab, Haryana and chandigarh too.

The fog led to delay and diversion of around 150 domestic and international flights today. Between 8 PM last night and 8 AM this morning, around 150 flights, either arriving here or departing from here have been cancelled or diverted due to extremely poor visibility at the airport due to dense fog, airport officials said.

Around 51 domestic and international flights departing from here and 39 scheduled to arrive here, between 8 PM last night and 8 this morning, have been cancelled. Also 52 incoming flights have been diverted to Amritsar, Lucknow and other destinations, they said.

A SpiceJet flight from Goa to Delhi, with 132 passengers and four crew onboard, had to make an emergency landing at around 9.50 PM as it ran short on fuel. Lounges at the airport were packed with passengers who complained that they were not given information about the flight status.

Long queues were seen at airline counters for collection of refunds for cancelled flights or to get a seat on any early flight. Around 15 flights coming to Delhi were diverted to Amritsar. People could be seen moving from one counter to another in search of information or tickets.

"I had to wait for about three hours before the airline decided to cancel my flight to Mumbai. Now I am waiting in the queue to get a refund," said Anil Kumar. One of the passengers Anna, who was to arrive in Delhi from Hyderabad by an Air India flight which was subsequently diverted to Amritsar, said they have no clue when their flight will leave for Delhi.

"I have been waiting through the night at Amritsar airport. No idea when our flight will leave for Delhi. Authorities have told us that it might take off after noon," she said over phone from Amritsar.

Within two hours, the runway visibility dropped from 500 metres to less than 100 metres. Operations almost came to a complete halt around 10 PM after runway visibility dipped to less than 75 metres, which is the minimum required visibility condition for an aircraft to land using CAT IIIB instrument landing system. The general visibility was almost nil. The minimum required visibility for an aircraft for the Low Visibility Take Off (LVTO) is 125 metres and 150 metres, depending upon the size of the aircraft.

Delhi airport is equipped with two CAT-III B complaint runways, which enables a CAT-III B trained pilot to land a CAT-III B complaint plane when the runway visibility is merely 75 metres.

On Sunday, the visibility remained poor during the whole day which led to delay in schedule of around 206 domestic and international flights. Flight operations resumed today around 1 AM, when the landings started. Priority was given to international flights, as most of them operate at night, they said.

Though the visibility was poor, planes were landing using CAT III B ILS and the take off started around 4 AM, when runway visibility improved to more than 150 metres on the main runway (28/10), officials said.

But gradually visibility on the third runway, (29/11) also started to improve and both the runway were used intermittently, they added. Delhi had been witnessing dense fog from Saturday last, which, according to the Met Department, is the "season's worst". Met officials said it may be the worst fog after January 2010.

According to Met department, maximum temperature on Monday will be 16 deg celsius. Monday will start with shallow fog but the sky will be clear later in the day.

Even in the US many places like North Dakota and are experiencing minus 35 Celsius temperatures.

In New York City, a plane from Toronto landed at Kennedy International Airport and then slid into snow on a taxiway. No one was hurt, though the airport temporarily suspended operations because of icy runways.

India launches GSLV-D5 successfully

Bangalore: In a major achievement, India’s geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-D5) blasted off successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on Sunday.

The GSLV-D5 with indigenous cryogenic engine successfully placed GSAT-14 communication satellite on orbit.

Speaking after the launch, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said, "I am extremely happy and proud to say that ISRO has done it."

Wasting no time, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated the ISRO team.

PM congratulates the scientists and engineers of ISRO for the successful launch of GSLV D5 carrying GSAT-14 payload, PMO tweeted soon after the successful launch.

"It is yet another important step that the country has taken in the area of science and technology," Manmohan said, according to the post on Twitter.

When the Mars orbiter was successfully launched into Earth orbit on November 5 last year, BJP's PM candidate and Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was the first one to congratulate the ISRO team.

With this, India joins an elite club of countries with the technology after a crash and a fuel leak on previous attempts.

Earlier, scientists were making final preparations for the launch of the rocket using a complex technology mastered by just a handful of countries, a top Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official said.

The rocket weighs 415-tonne and carries a two-tonne advanced communications satellite, ISRO director Deviprasad Karnik said.

"Preparations for final countdown are going on normally to launch the 49-metre Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) with our cryogenic engine at 4:18pm," Karnik told AFP earlier.

The mission is India's latest attempt to push further into the global market for launching commercial satellites. It comes after India successfully lifted a spacecraft into orbit in November aimed at travelling to Mars, as the country bids to become the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet.

Sunday's project has had to overcome several hurdles, including an aborted launch in August last year several hours before lift-off after a fuel leak was discovered in one of the rocket's engines.

The first rocket crashed into the Bay of Bengal just minutes after take-off in April 2010 after the cryogenic engines failed to ignite.

"If we succeed this time, India will join a select club of space-faring nations with indigenous cryogenic engine capability to launch above two-tonne class satellites," Karnik had said earlier.

The United States, Russia, France, Japan and China are among the countries to have successfully developed cryogenic boosters. "The twin purpose of this launch mission is to flight test once again our own cryogenic engine and put into the geostationary orbit a heavy communication satellite," Karnik said.

It has taken ISRO scientists years to develop cryogenic motors after its bid to import the technology from Russia in 1992 failed because of opposition from the United States. The powerful booster technology, using super-cooled liquid fuel, is designed to put heavier satellites into high orbits, about 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) from Earth.

"A cryogenic rocket stage is more efficient and provides more thrust for every kilogram (kg) of propellant (fuel) it burns compared to other solid and liquid fuel stages," Karnik said.

Since 2001, India has bought cryogenic engines from Russia and seven of them have been used on missions.

India first staked its claim for a share of the lucrative commercial satellite-launch market by sending an Italian satellite into orbit in 2007.

The government sees its low-cost space exploration programme as an achievement that underlines India's emergence as a major world economy, and many citizens take great patriotic pride in its development.