Bad weather forces Rourkela flight to head back to Bhubaneswar

Rourkela: An Alliance Air flight carrying 68 passengers from Bhubaneswar could not land in Rourkela on Monday due to adverse weather and had to return to Biju Patnaik airport.
Sixty passengers who were booked from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar were left in the lurch. The flight had departed Bhubaneswar around 2.50 pm and when it was about to land at Rourkela around 3.42 pm, it could not do so because of high winds and bad weather. The pilot took the plane back to Bhubaneswar airport.
Those waiting at Rourkela airport to board the flight returned home with some rescheduling their journey. “I waited at Rourkela airport for more than one hour to go to Bhubaneswar but the flight was cancelled,” said P Swain, a resident of Bhubaneswar. “After the flight was cancelled, I hired a taxi to go to Bhubaneswar because I had to catch another flight on Tuesday morning to go to Rajkot,” he added.
Flight operations are being affected because of a slight change in weather due to non-availability of instrument landing system and night landing facility at Rourkela airport. “Discussions are on with civil aviation ministry for installation of instrument landing system and night landing facility at Rourkela airport,” said Archana Satpathy, chief of communication, Rourkela Steel Plant, which operates the airport.