Indigo flight strays into Pakistan in bad weather, returns to India shortly later

Rawalpindi: A flight of the IndiGo airlines en route to Ahmedabad from Amritsar strayed into Pakistan near Lahore, flying up to Gujranwala due to bad weather before returning to Indian airspace at about 8 pm on Saturday.

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

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 11:30 p.m. on Saturday as the visibility at the Allama Iqbal International Airport was 5,000 metres, Dawn reported.

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, Dawn reported.

IANS with superficial edits