Thunderstorm leads to diversion of flights at Kolkata airport

Five flights to the NSC Bose Airport here were diverted this evening because of poor visibility caused by a thunderstorm, airport sources said.

The thunderstorm led to a halt to outgoing flights from the airport between 4:15 pm and 5:45 pm, the sources said.

Among the incoming flights, a Dimapur-Kolkata flight of Air India was diverted to Bhubaneswar, while another Air India flight from Silchar to Kolkata was diverted to Agartala, the sources said.
   
Two Indigo flights and another private airline were also diverted.
   
An international London-Delhi-Kolkata Air India flight which was to land at the airport was made to circle in the sky over the airport for about an hour because of the storm and could only land at 7:30 pm, the sources said.

Among the passengers on board were Trinamool Congress MPs Sudip Bandhopadhay and Ambika Banerjee, West Bengal Industry minister Nirupam Sen, Housing minister Goutam Deb, Left Front chairman Biman Bose and Union cultural secretary Jahar Sakar.

Bandhopadhay said that the flight took off from Delhi 40 minutes behind schedule at around 5:40 pm and within five minutes began jerking as it ran into turbulence.

He said that the captain announced that the passengers should not unfasten their seat belts or leave their seats as the aircraft was heading into a turbulence.

He said that the aircraft faced turbulence for 50% of the travel time.