Fog too heavy for new airport landing system in St. John's

On a daywhen the St. John's International Airport is trumpeting its first successes with a new Category 3 instruments landingsystem that allows planes to land when visibility is low, most flights have been delayed due to heavy fog.

"Our 1stCat 3 ILS landing occurred this morning," saida tweet from the airport Friday morning.

But the bragging rights were short-lived.

Just minutes later another tweet from the airport acknowledgedthat the system won't work100 per cent of the time.

"Cat 3 ILS is fully operational today but we're seeing conditions fall below Cat 3 limits," it said.

Airport Authority spokesperson Marie Manning said the new system allows flights to land if there is 600 feet of visibility, but on Friday visibility was half that.

The airport websiteshowed that an Air Canada flight from Halifax landed at 8:30 a.m. and another at 11:59 a.m. but mostotherFridayflights were either delayed or cancelled.

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Writer and actor Allan Hawco was one of the lucky ones. "Just made it in," he tweeted mid-afternoon.

But Liberal MPSeamus O'Regan's flight was diverted to Deer Lake.

In January, The St. John's International Airport Authority saidits new runway landing system hadbeen completed on budget, and three months ahead of schedule.

Officially, it's called the Airfield Accessibility and Safety Initiative a $37.3million job that's meant to reverse the airport's reputation for being inaccessible in the foggy season.

New LED lights were also put on the runways and along the apron of the terminal building, and newer, taller approach towers were erected at both ends of the primary runway.

The airport authority said 99 per cent of airplanes will be able to land when visibility is poor, allowing an estimated 700 more flights and 70,000 passengers toarrive and departannually.

But not on Friday.

"We're at that one per cent level," said Marie Manning.