A night of madness at Mumbai airport

Mumbai: Three air safety incidents in a span of eight hours on Friday night and early Saturday put Mumbai airport authorities to test besides disrupting flight schedules.
At 1.50 am on Saturday, the wing tip of Muscat bound Jet Airways Boeing 737 rammed into left horizontal stabilizer of a stationary Kingfisher airbus which was parked at the adjacent bay.
The tail of the Kingfisher aircraft can be seen above while the Jet Airways plane that collided into it is seen below “While being taken towards the runway, the Jet Airways plane cut through a portion near the tail and got stuck after. It is being viewed as a serious incident,’’ said an airport source.
On Friday night, an Air India Boeing 777 from London was stuck on the taxiway after landing.
The main runway had to be closed for use as landing planes would have been unable to vacate using this taxiway. Although the secondary runway was opened, seven incoming flights were diverted to Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
“At 11.12 pm the pilot of an Air India plane reported smoke emanating from the landing gear. Emergency services sprayed foam on it, but the operation blocked the taxiway for an hour,’’ said MIAL spokesperson.
A source said, “The Air India pilot radioed the problem to the Air Traffic Controller. However, for next 2-3 minutes ground controllers were unable to establish contact with fire station and safety jeeps because of some communication problem. If it was a real fire situation, such a delay would have proved costly.’’
Earlier in the evening, an emergency landing by a cargo plane led to massive delays and diversions. “A Fedex plane on Dubai-Bangalore route made an emergency landing because of suspected fire in cargo hold at 6.30 pm.
24/10/10 Mumbai Mirror

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Categories: Air India - International Oct 2010, airports Oct 2010, Cargo Oct 2010, Jet Airways Oct 2010, Kingfisher Oct 2010, NACIL Oct 2010, Safety Oct 2010