Several flights inbound to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport Timehri were delayed yesterday morning after heavy fog enveloped the area as well as several parts of the Coastland.
Airport sources told Stabroek News yesterday that a Caribbean Airlines flight which travelled from Trinidad and Tobago was forced to return yesterday morning after encountering the fog at the airport.
A Delta Airlines flight from the JFK airport was also forced to land in Trinidad; the flight was already in Guyana’s airspace on course for its 6:30am scheduled landing when it was forced to divert to the neighbouring island.
Both flights left the island for Guyana several hours later, landing at Timehri sometime before 11 am.
Aviation sources told this newspaper that flight delays as a result of weather conditions will be a thing of the past, since work is forging ahead on the completion of an Instrument Landing System (ILS) as well as a weather station for air traffic services at Timehri.
The two projects are expected to be completed by February next year.
The setting–up of the two facilities are part of an Air Navigation Surveillance (ANS) Modernization project and this newspaper understands that Cabinet recently approved the financing of a new Very High Frequency Omni-Directional Radio Range (VOR) to be set up at the airport.
The latter provides directional information to aircraft travelling to and from the airport while the ILS is a navigational aid, which provides guidance to aircraft landing at an airport during severe weather conditions.
Met office personal told this newspaper yesterday that the conditions which were experienced yesterday were radiation fog, which is formed by the cooling of land after sunset by radiation in calm conditions with clear sky.
Foggy conditions were experienced yesterday morning along the Coastal belt and in some inland locations and the weather conditions brought along a simultaneous decrease in air temperature.
In Georgetown, visibility was reduced drastically, to less than 100m in some areas and according to the met office, the conditions will continue once there is heavy radiation in the day time.
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth’s surface. It is generally low-lying and its moisture content is often generated locally, such as from a nearby body of water, for instance a river or lake or from nearby moist ground or marshes. It is distinguished from mist only by its density, as expressed in the resulting decrease in visibility. (Alva Solomon)
