Saturday 17 November 2012

Fog hits Modlin badly

Another foggy day. I notice that there's more movement in the sky above Jeziorki, and check Flight Radar 24.Yes, indeed. Modlin's out of action (due to its lack of Instrument Landing System or ILS), and flights are being diverted to Okęcie.

Below: a Ryanair flight that's had to land at Okęcie makes an attempt to land at Modlin. It gets down to 200m (yellow line) but no lower - and at that altitude, the decision is taken to fly off. Meanwhile, to the west, over Gmina Sanniki, a WizzAir flight from Luton gets the order to divert to Okęcie. [Two screenshots from FlightRadar24.com merged into one for the sake of brevity, by the way. Click to enlarge.]


I decide to take a stroll down to the airport after lunch. The fog's dreadful. I reach the level crossing just by the end of the runway before I can make any visual contact with landing aircraft. Below: with a wide-angle lens, I scan the sky in the direction of the aircraft noise - this is the best image I can get.


Below: this is an Bombardier Q400 coming in over the railway line, at first sight, I took it for an ATR 72. Enlarged photo shows (just!) wheels coming out of engine nacelles rather than from fuselage sponsons.


Below: Airbus? Embraer? Can't tell. Vertical height as it goes over the fence... 200m?


Below: here, I can tell that this is a LOT Embraer ERJ 175. The trees give an impression of scale. This plane's over the fence and approaching the end of the runway.


Below: a Dassault Falcon 7X, three-engined business jet, approaching the runway threshold.


Below: runway lighting at Okęcie; these gantries run in a line from the airport fence to the edge of the runway, a pulsing light is augmented with fog lights.


Okęcie has Category II ILS, Cat IIIC being the highest. Cat II allows for a decision height no lower than 30m (100 ft), and a runway visual range not less than 350m (1,150 ft).

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2 comments:

Karol said...

on 2nd photo its Q400 more probably than ATR.
Regards, Karol

Michael Dembinski said...

@ Karol - you're right! Took a good look at undercarriage... Thanks, corrected :)