Panaji: Six flights were diverted to nearby destinations after lightning struck the Manohar International Airport at Mopa, causing damage to the runway edge lights on Wednesday evening.

Inconvenience was caused to passengers, as it took around two hours for normalcy to be restored.

“There was a lightning strike at about 1715 hours at Manohar International Airport (MIA), Goa which caused damage to the runway edge lights,” an official said.

The MIA took NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) up to 8 pm, by which time the damaged lights were rectified/replaced to bring the airport operations to normalcy.

During the NOTAM, six flights were diverted to nearby destinations, the official said. Inconvenience caused to the passengers is sincerely regretted, MIA said.

Earlier, in the evening, some airlines had notified its passengers that its operations had been affected due to the temporary unavailability of the runway at the Mopa airport.

This is perhaps the first time that lightning has struck at the Mopa airport, impacting its operations.