Moscow flight unable to land in Penza as city airport diverts aircraft due to weather
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Penza, 13 January 2016. PenzaNews. The 7R 169 “RusLine” flight that departed from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in the morning of Wednesday, January 13, was unable to land in Penza due to blizzard, the city airport director Yuri Oskolkov told PenzaNews agency.
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“It circled above for about 40 minutes, it had the fuel reserves for 3 hours. Our airfield control stayed in contact with the flight, they had options – Samara or Domodedovo. After analyzing the weather forecast, we realized waiting any further would be useless. It circled some more, but the weather worsened. When it first arrived, visibility was 600 [meters], then it reduced to 400 [meters] while waiting, and the wind increased by 2 meters [per second] – from 14 to 16. So we decided to divert the plane to the standby base in Domodedovo,” he explained.
The Penza airport is temporarily not accommodating or departing any fights at the moment, Yuri Oskolkov added.
“The weather conditions are currently unsuitable for any incoming or outgoing flights: there is strong beam wind, now 16 meters per second, we expect it to increase to 20. The front will pass over Penza, then the wind will calm down and the snowfall stops. But then comes another trouble – the forecast promises rains. It would be easier to tackle: since icing is expected, we are ready to use reagents to prevent runway icing,” the airport director noted.
Currently, a total of three flights have been suspended – two to Moscow, and one to Kazan, Yuri Oskolkov added.
“To fly the plane out, we need to accommodate another flight: we do not have a plane of our own,” he said.
The passengers expecting to depart were let out of the airport before 13.00, the airport director clarified.
“Some of the passengers remain in the terminal building. Will be arranging for meals. The only thing left is to wait,” Yuri Oskolkov said.
According to him, the runway has not been swept yet.
“Currently we are not sweeping it, simply because it is useless – you go past, and the snow covers it all up behind you. Since we have poor visibility, and the beam wind, the cleaning equipment is on standby. As soon as we see it [the snow] begin to run out, we begin sweeping. We need about 30-40 minutes to clean the whole runway on our own,” the Penza airport director concluded.
