Plane removed, operations resume at Mumbai airport runway

IANS

Mumbai, 05 September 2011: Nearly 75 hours after it skidded and got stuck in mud, the stranded Turkish Airlines plane was finally removed from the Mumbai airport runway early Monday, an official said. Normal flight operations soon resumed.

 

The plane was removed from the spot near the main runway at around 1 a.m. and towed to the Air India hangar at 6.45 a.m.

 

Just before 7 a.m., the main runway - 0927 - was handed over to the Air Traffic Control to resume normal operations.

 

The first flight to take off was a Mumbai-Kolkata Air India flight AI-675 at 7.07 a.m. The first arrival was from Hyderabad, SG 403, at 7.12 a.m., the official told IANS.

 

The runway was shut early Friday after the Turkish Airlines plane skidded off after landing and got stuck in the mud following heavy rains. All 104 passengers, including 11 crew were safely evacuated.

 

In the past three days, the airport had a harrowing time as all operations had to be diverted to the secondary runway. Over a dozen flights were diverted and around half a dozen cancelled.

 

Besides, the airport had to deal with one emergency landing (Spicejet on Saturday) and a bomb scare (Jet Airways, Sunday).

 

During the same period, the airport was forced to suspend all operations on at least five occasions due to poor visibility and heavy rains lashing the city since Sep 1.