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Our Bureau

Mumbai Nov. 10 Tuesday turned out to be a chaotic day at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. While incessant rains disrupted operations in the afternoon, a Kingfisher Airlines aircraft skidded off the runway in the evening, halting operations for more than an hour.

“Short runway operations started at 1.04 p.m., however, due to poor visibility the operations were suspended from 3.07 p.m. to 3.43 p.m.

They opened again at 3.44 p.m.,” said spokesperson for Mumbai International Airport (MIAL).

Later, a Kingfisher Airlines flight from Bhavnagar to Mumbai ATR aircraft, “left the runway after landing” at 4.36 p.m. The runway was closed for about an hour and a half till 6.08 p.m, said MIAL spokesperson.

There were a total of eight diversions for the day, he added.

A statement from Kingfisher Airlines later said, “All 42 guests and four crew-members on board the aircraft are safe and unhurt. The flight which was being operated by an ATR 72-500 aircraft landed on the shortened runway.”

“Kingfisher Airlines’ flight safety department will conduct a full inquiry into the incident and cooperate fully with the DGCA team that will probe this incident. Pending the investigation, the pilots have been de-rostered,” said the spokesperson of Kingfisher Airlines.

Mumbai airport remains closed for six hours every Tuesday due to repair and reconstruction work currently going on at the runways. However, a part of the runway is available for operations, and smaller aircraft such as ATRs, Boeing 737s, Airbus-319 and Airbus-320 are able to take off and land. MIAL undertakes the work at the intersection of the main runway and the alternative runway between 12 noon and 6 p.m. The exercise that began on October 28 will go on for the next 22 weeks.

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