Riyadh | More than 12 aircraft were unable to land in the sandstorm

Laq Al Arab - Sinan Khalaf - The capital, Riyadh, was affected by a sandstorm and a heavy dusty atmosphere this evening, which caused a significant decrease in the horizontal visibility at King Khalid Airport, reaching 50 meters, which impeded air navigation and obstructed the process of landing aircraft.

On this, Saudi Captain Muhammad Al Shaiban tweeted that more than 12 aircraft were unable to land due to dust, and were flying in the sky of Riyadh at different altitudes, waiting for the horizontal visibility to improve.

Al-Shaiban emphasized that the captain of the plane in such cases has two options, either to wait for an improvement in the horizontal visibility to do the landing, or to approach the amount of fuel allocated to go to an alternative airport.

He explained that the air dispatcher plans any flight before taking off by calculating the amount of fuel for the arrival station + fuel to the alternative airport + an amount of not less than 30 minutes + an amount of not less than 5% of the total fuel + additional fuel that may arrive for an hour or more precisely under the worst conditions and choosing Alternative airport carefully and with constant conditions in the event that the captain of the aircraft is forced to divert the flight path.

More than 12 aircraft coming to King Khalid Airport are now circling over the city of # Riyadh at different altitudes due to the low visibility of 50 meters
You are waiting for one of two things:
1- Improves vision
2- Or approaching the amount of fuel allocated to go to its alternative airport. pic.twitter.com/SuZfAqP0Mo

- Muhammad Al Shaiban (@ m7md_shaiban) March 12, 2021