The Hindu Business Line : AI aircraft skids off runway in Mumbai; airport back to normal

THE international airport in Mumbai, which was closed for two hours on Saturday morning after an Air India aircraft overshot the runway while landing, resumed normal flight operations, a senior airport official said.

According to Mr Sudhir Kumar, Airport Director, the runway was made operational by 11:30 a.m. and the backlog of flights was cleared soon after.

The Chicago-bound Air India flight arrived from Bangalore at around 7 a.m. The Boeing 747-400 later took off from Mumbai at 12 noon.

None of the 333 passengers onboard suffered any injuries. Neither was there any damage to the aircraft, an airline spokesperson said.

Queried on the possible reasons for the aircraft overshooting the runway, Mr Sudhir Kumar said the heavy rain during landing may have affected the breaking system. However, he added that it was difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for the incident.

The AI spokesperson said the landing was not hampered by the rain, visibility at the time was also not an issue. But he said the exact cause of the incident would have to be probed.

The airport had to be shut down for about two hours as it has just one operational runway. While the main runway has not been commissioned yet with the landing instruments still not serviceable after the heavy rains, the airport has brought the shorter, secondary runway into use.

A number of international and domestic flights had to be delayed or diverted to other centres while the airport was closed. With communication lines still not completely restored, passengers were not adequately briefed on developments and the airport had many an irate passenger complaining about the lack of information on the flight delays and diversions.

SIA cancels flights

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines has cancelled four of its flights from Mumbai. Flights Q421 for July 30; SQ 423 and SQ 421 for July 31; and SQ 423 for August 1 will not be operated as the main runway used by most airlines for international operations was still not serviceable. An airline statement has advised passengers booked on these flights to contact their travel agents for re-bookings when its resumes operations to Mumbai.

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