Thursday, July 28 2005 09:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: With limited navigational aids made available by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the City Airport was made 'partially operational' and four aircraft, including three with relief materials, landed early today (July 28, 2005).

"A special flight with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Chairman Subir Rahaand his team also landed as we have made the airport available for visual landing by aircraft with the help of limited navigational aids such as the localizer and the distance measuring equipment", AAI airport director Sudhir Kumar said.

Kumar said water has receded and visibility (up to 2.5 km) today has improved considerably.

A detailed examination of other equipment such as instrument landing system and the very high frequency Omni Range (VOR), which continue to be under water, will be carried out and there is a possibility of them being available after noon, air traffic control officilals said.

Indian Airlines, Air-India and Jet Airways said flights into and out of Mumbai would depend on the availability of navigational and communication aids from 12 noon.

IA said the first flight out of Delhi is scheduled to depart at 1pm and land in Mumbai at 3pm.

The runway was flooded and flights were suspended from Mumbai airport since Tuesday (July 26, 2005) 2.30 pm after the Mithi river adjoining the airport overflowed and inundated the runway.

AAI had a tough time clearing the drums and other material lying on the runway, after the waters had receded, Kumar said.