By By Ben Alexander/The Meridian Star
Jan. 19, 2001
With visibility down to a quarter of a mile at some points during the day, air travelers hoping to fly out of Meridian Regional Airport on Thursday were surprised and delayed by a heavy fog.
The dense fog moved across the airport in the day, stopping flights until around 3 p.m., said Mark Cowart, the airport's executive director. On a normal day, Cowart said, the airport may have more than 150 operations, or takeoffs and landings. Due to the fog, the airport had only three operations by 3 p.m.
Northwest Airlines was fortunate enough to get a flight off to Memphis around 6 a.m. before the fog became impenetrable.
According to Cowart, ASA flights from Dallas and Atlanta were able to land around 4 p.m. as the fog began to lift.
At one point on Thursday the visibility was down to a quarter of a mile, but by late afternoon visibility had already increased to three miles.
Cowart said things should be back to normal at the airport Friday.
Ben Alexander is a staff writer for The Meridian Star. E-mail him at balexander@themeridianstar.com.