# Diwali cracker smoke disrupts 26 flights, Raipur flight diverted to Bengaluru 2026-11-09T07:02:58+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets Thick smoke from Diwali firecrackers disrupted flight operations at Chennai airport on Sunday (8 November) night, affecting 26 flights. Eleven arriving flights were delayed, 15 departing flights took off late, and an IndiGo flight from Raipur was diverted to Bengaluru after pilot found runway visibility below the required minimum of 950 metres. Airport authorities reported visibility at around 900 metres at the time of the diversion. The IndiGo flight 6E2002, with 78 passengers, subsequently returned to Chennai and arrived at 1:54 am. Other flights landed or departed as visibility improved within minutes. The disruption was more severe than in 2025, when 15 flights were delayed but no diversion occurred. The Airports Authority of India had made additional arrangements anticipating visibility issues. Dtnext reported the affected flights doubled from 15 last year to 26 this year, while Times of India noted the diversion was a precautionary pilot decision. ## Indian Opinion Analysis Dtnext frames the disruption as the more severe Diwali disruption than last year, leading with a total of 26 affected flights, while Times of India leads with the specific Raipur diversion and cites a concrete visibility reading of 900 metres against the 950-metre minimum. The two accounts are uniform on the core fact of the diversion but diverge in scope: the broader count of delayed flights appears only in dtnext, and the precise visibility metric only in Times of India. The balanced reading is that while visibility briefly dropped below the safety threshold for one flight, the overall impact involved delays to two dozen other services. Both sources attribute the diversion to the pilot’s precautionary decision, and dtnext notes the number of affected flights doubled from 15 last year to 26 this year. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral - dtnext.in (neutral report) Leads with broad disruption count and comparison to last year - timesofindia.indiatimes.com (neutral report) Leads with specific diversion, cites exact visibility readings This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Tags: Airports Authority of India, Bengaluru, Chennai airport, Diwali, IndiGo, Raipur Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/diwali-cracker-smoke-disrupts-26-flights-raipur-flight-diverted-to-bengaluru/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/diwali-cracker-smoke-disrupts-26-flights-raipur-flight-diverted-to-bengaluru/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/