Dense fog closes airport for 12 hours

Dense overnight fog at Palma airport caused problems for flights and thousands of travellers yesterday morning with over 70 flights unable to land on Thursday night because of seriously poor visibility. The dense belt of fog moved across the airport at 11pm on Thursday night and, from then on, the first flight to land was not until 10.30 am yesterday during that period, just 13 flights managed to take off. The bulk of the 70 affected flights were diverted to Minorca, Ibiza, Alicante, Valencia, Barcelona or Madrid. The thick fog also caused a light cargo aircraft to spin off the runway at Palma's Son San Joan terminal - fortunately the pilot was able to maintain control of the aircraft. But although the fog may have cleared yesterday morning, having already caused delays and flight interruptions not only in Palma but also at European airports with flights bound for Palma, the repercussions dragged on into the afternoon.