Thick fog delays landings at LAX

Thick fog along the coast caused delays of up to an hour and a half at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday evening for planes from around the country.

Eighty-eight flights to Los Angeles were postponed, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Visibility at the airport was reduced to a quarter of a mile to 1 1/4 mile, and the fog was not expected to lift until this morning, according to the National Weather Service.

“We’re down to one runway for arrivals,” Gregor said, because only one of the three operational runways is equipped with an instrument landing system that can guide arriving airplanes in thick fog.

A fourth runway is out of service for construction work.

“Normally, around this time, we’d have an arrival rate of 58 to 60 planes an hour. Right now the arrival rate is 32 to 42,” Gregor said about 8 p.m.

By 9:30 p.m., conditions had improved and the landing rate had increased to about 52 an hour, he said.

The heavy fog was triggered by a combination of warm temperatures Saturday -- Woodland Hills recorded a high of 92 degrees, breaking a record for Nov. 18 set in 1949 -- and the cooler moist air coming from the ocean, said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Visibility was expected to remain less than 2 miles overnight, said meteorologist Joe Sirard.