Varanasi: An Air India flight AI 2146 from Bali to Delhi was diverted due to bad weather and made an emergency landing at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi late Tuesday afternoon.After standing on the strip with 187 passengers on board for over two hours, it left for Delhi, said Puneet Gupta, director of the Varanasi airport, on Wednesday, adding that the flight was from Denpasar, Indonesia to Delhi. After receiving clearance from ATC, the diverted flight landed at Varanasi Airport at 4.20 pm. Approximately two hours later, when weather in Delhi improved, the flight was granted permission to take off at 7pm.On Tuesday, before the flight reached Delhi, weather conditions worsened and the aircraft with 187 passengers on board, including three children, was diverted, even as the pilot contacted ATC at Varanasi airport for landing at an alternate airport. The flight departed from the Denpasar International Airport in Bali, Indonesia at 10.30 am (local time) and was to land at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, around 2.30 pm.

According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the Airbus A321 plane landed in Varanasi instead of Delhi. The flight was near the Delhi-UP border when it was diverted to Varanasi, it showed.