National Desk: Flight operations at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, were suspended for nearly two hours on Saturday evening after the runway lights suddenly went off.
According to reports in Nepali media, airport spokesperson Rinji Sherpa said the runway lights stopped working around 5:30 PM.
“The lights on both sides of the runway went off. A few were partially functional, but most of them stopped working,” he stated.
The exact cause of the malfunction is still under investigation. An electrical engineering team from the airport was deployed immediately to fix the issue.
Sherpa added, “For operations to resume, the entire runway lighting system must be fully restored. Since the runway is long, all lights will be checked and repaired before reopening.”
Due to the blackout, several flights were diverted.
- A Buddha Air flight from Janakpur had to return to base,
- Another Buddha Air flight from Surkhet was diverted to Pokhara,
- Meanwhile, a Korean Air flight bound for Kathmandu was diverted to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Similar Problem Reported at Delhi Airport
Just a day earlier, over 100 flights were affected at Delhi’s IGI Airport, causing major inconvenience to passengers. Airlines including IndiGo, Air India, SpiceJet, and Akasa Air confirmed that a technical glitch in the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system disrupted flight schedules and led to delays.
