Crater on runway, flight in air

Calcutta: A Lufthansa flight that covered Frankfurt to Calcutta in nine hours took more than four hours to land because of a crater at one end of the runway and high tailwind at the other.
Flight commandant Butt Kerit Lutz flew the Airbus A-330 with 225 passengers on board to Hyderabad after circling the airport for 45 minutes and making two abortive landing attempts from the southern side between 11 and 11.44pm on Monday.
When the flight reached Hyderabad, the passengers were told that they wouldn’t be allowed to get off because immigration rules don’t permit unscheduled disembarking except during emergencies.
The aircraft stood on the tarmac for more than an hour for refuelling and other checks.
The Airbus finally returned to the city and made a safe landing at 4.30am, but the passengers’ ordeal wasn’t over.
All 225 people on board the aircraft were forced to wait an additional 30 minutes at the terminal because members of the swine flu squad were “not ready” to examine them.
An official explained that the team was not present at the terminal’s medical counter when the flight touched down because it was an “unscheduled arrival”.
Flight number LS 750 was on schedule when it entered Calcutta airspace around 10.50pm. Lutz was aligning the aircraft for landing when air traffic control (ATC) alerted him to a crater three feet wide and four inches deep on the northern end of the primary runway, where flights normally land.
The Airbus hovered above the city for the next 45 minutes waiting for the force of the tailwind to lessen.
10/06/09 The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Jun 2009, Foreign Jun 2009