1 week Ago By Trevin Christian Casinader
On Thursday night, Portland International Jetport (PWM) experienced heavy fog in its vicinity, which resulted in multiple diversions, flight cancellations, and delays. The diversions severely inconvenienced passengers who were left stranded. The fog persisted throughout the night and impacted flight operations on Friday morning as well.
A perfect storm A Jetport spokesperson told Maine’s Total Coverage the following day that eight flights had to divert. The fog was not forecasted, and no official weather advisory was issued for the PWM area. The fog was a major factor in preventing aircraft from landing, but another issue made life more difficult for pilots.
The main runway at PWM is closed for construction. It is the runway with the instrument landing system and a lower visibility threshold. The runway has been closed since September 11th due to a five-month-long taxiway restructuring project.
PWM is equipped with two runways, 11/29 and 18/36. The former is the main runway, 7,200 ft long, and the latter is the secondary runway, 6,100 ft long. Runway 11/29 is equipped with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) with CAT III capability, which enables aircraft to land in near whiteout conditions.
Unfortunately, the secondary runway is only equipped with GPS approaches, which don’t offer the same landing performance. As a result, the secondary runway in use has a higher visibility threshold. The fog brought the visibility to levels lower than required for the approach, resulting in many aircraft going around after being unable to see the runway.
Paul Bradbury, the Director of the Portland International Jetport, spoke about Thursday’s situation: "It's very disappointing and there's always challenges, but it's always safety first. We can't control the weather, nobody can, nor can an airline. It's very difficult.
Construction has to happen, also for safety." According to airport officials, roughly 800 passengers were onboard the diverted flights. Passenger experiences One passenger, Matt Thompson, described his experience.
He stated that the go-around pushed everyone back in their seats. Later, the pilot informed passengers that he couldn’t see the runway and had to divert to Hartford. Thompson said: “Looked out the window, patchy fog, thought they might take the landing gear down and (the pilot) took off like 'Top Gun' and we went to Hartford," Passengers aboard this particular flight had to spend the night at Hartford and wait for the 10 AM flight to PWM the next day.
Another passenger said that her pilots tried to land twice before choosing to divert to Boston after being unable to see the runway. Passengers later decided to try to catch the bus to Portland. However, the last bus of the night was already sold out, and passengers were left stranded waiting for the next flight out on Friday.
The passenger’s family had to drive up from Portland to Boston. She said: "We were stranded at the airport. No rental cars were available, and [the] surrounding hotels [were] completely booked.
It was an awful experience." Airlines diverted to airports around Portland, including Boston, Hartford, Manchester, and New Hampshire. How do airlines and airports adapt to foggy conditions?.
