It’s now been established it was the Etihad Airlines flight carrying triple Major winning Padraig Harrington that was responsible for Abu Dhabi Airport shutting down early on Monday morning.

The flights of many competitors, including new Abu Dhabi HSBC Champion Robert Rock, were thrown into chaos due to Harrington’s flight damaging landing nights in thick fog.

Many of those European Tour members travelling to Doha and this week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters complained on arrival it had taken upwards of 13 hours to travel the hour’s flight to Doha.

They arrived in the Qatar capital knowing Abu Dhabi airport had been closed due a plane damaging a number of the landing lights.

Harrington’s A330-200 aircraft was taxiing down the runway in thick fog prior to taking off when Harrington and the other 205 passengers felt a severe jolt before the plane came to a shuddering halt.

Initially, the captain announced that the take-off of flight EY045 from Abu Dhabi to Dublin had been abandoned due to dense fog, but a spokesman for the airline later admitted the aircraft was forced to abort its take-off when the left tyre on its front landing gear punctured shattering lights on the airport’s main runway.

Harrington’s flight eventually left some 12 hours late but with Etihad and other airlines havig to find hotel accommodation for hundreds of passengers.

Among those also affected was European Tour golf writing colleagues Karl MacGinty (Irish Independent), Jock MacVicar (Scottish Express) and John Hopkins.

Etihad Airways later issued an apology, saying that the incident was being investigated