Colombo-bound Turkish plane makes emergency landing in Thiruvananthapuram

SHANGHUMUKHAM: A Turkish flight headed for Colombo landed at Thiruvananthapuram airport due to bad weather on Tuesday. Hours later the weather in Sri Lanka changed but the pilot was hesitant to fly as the crew time had expired. The passengers deboarded the flight and were accommodated in various hotels in the capital city. The plane will return to Colombo with passengers on Wednesday.

A flight carrying 299 passengers and 10 crew members from Istanbul, Turkey, to Colombo airport struggled to overcome the bad weather and made an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram at 6.51 a.m. Three hours later, a change in weather was reported, but the flight could not take off. The disruption occurred when the plane was delayed refuelling and the crew was overdue.

International air traffic law doesn’t allow a flight to take off under the charge of crew members who have exceeded their assigned working hours. Special landing permission was obtained, and the passengers and crew were transferred to the hotel in the city. Most of the passengers on board are from Sri Lanka and the Netherlands.

Officials say that landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport can be done regardless of bad weather. This is mainly attributed to the geographical features. The sea-facing airport is exposed to the sea breeze, so the fog cannot obscure the view for long.

Apart from this, the pilots can see the runway clearly in any adverse weather conditions. Thiruvananthapuram is set up with a Drishti transmitter, which can provide accurate information about the weather and an instrument landing system, which helps pilots to make a landing without seeing the runway.