Cyclone Vardah has been showing its effects in the district of Chennai and its suburbs but south coastal Andhra Pradesh seems to be affected too. Air passengers travelling to and from Visakhapatnam were troubled as flight schedules were disturbed because of strong tail winds.
According to a report, a Jet Airway flight [9 W 979] was scheduled to land in Visakhapatnam from Bombay around 1 PM yesterday but because of strong tail winds, the pilot turned the plane and decided to land in Hyderabad instead. After spending some time in Hyderabad, The Jet Airway flight proceeded towards Visakhapatnam and landed here around 4:40 pm after hovering above the city for a few time. The pilot hovered the plane above Simhachalam temple, Vizag steel plant and Meghadri Gedda reservoir until he could make a safe landing.
Same incident took place with an Indigo flight too when it took off from Kolkata and to Chennai via Bhubaneswar and was scheduled to arrive in Visakhapatnam around 2:40 pm. This flight was also diverted to Hyderabad for the same reason. It took off from Hyderabad for Vizag at 6:35 pm and landed an hour later.
Vinod Sharma, the airport director said,“Strong tail winds would make it difficult for the pilot to land. The Jet Airways flight was diverted to Hyderabad and later returned and landed in Vizag. The IndiGo flight is expected to return to Vizag late in the evening”.
The pilot’s presence of mind saved the day. Inconvenience was caused to the passengers but everybody reached their destination at the end of the day.
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