RAWALPINDI: Due to bad weather, a flight of the ‘IndiGo’ airlines en route to Ahmedabad from Amritsar strayed into Pakistan near Lahore and went up to Gujranwala before heading back to Indian airspace at about 8pm on Saturday.

According to flight radar, the Indian plane with a ground speed of 454 knots entered north of Lahore at about 7:30pm and returned to India at 8:01pm. A senior official of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that it was not unusual as it was “internationally allowed” in bad weather conditions.

Meanwhile, several flights were diverted and delayed due to poor visibility at airports in light of an alert issued by the CAA. The CAA spokesman said that it had extended the weather warning for Lahore till 11:30pm on Saturday as the visibility at the Allama Iqbal International Airport was 5,000 metres.

A number of flights heading to Lahore were diverted to Islamabad due to poor visibility. Meanwhile, a PIA flight from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad was diverted to Multan. A Jeddah-Lahore flight was also diverted to Multan.

PIA flights from Lahore to Madina and Karachi to Lahore as well as an Etihad flight from Lahore to Abu Dhabi were delayed.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2023