Preliminary investigations into Saturday's landing goof-up involving an Indigo flight from Chandigarh have revealed that the aircraft lost control twice before the pilot brought it under control.
The commander and the co-pilot of flight 6E 433 were de-rostered on Sunday pending a probe by the Directorate general of Civil Aviation (DGCA) into the incident.
The flight, with 140 passengers on board, deviated from the center-line of the runway and went left towards the shoulder, breaking five lights in the process. It then went further up to the unpaved area.
The pilot reportedly tried to steer the aircraft back to the runway and brought it back till the shoulder, but it veered off again towards the unpaved patch. It was only in the second attempt that the plane was brought back on the runway.
The Airbus A-320 landed at Mumbai airport at 6.35pm and went-off the 60-feet wide runway into the unpaved patch. It came back to the runway towards the taxiway without notifying the air traffic control. The incident was discovered eight minutes later when a Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd staffer spotted the five damaged runway lights.
11/03/13 Chinmayi Shalya/Times of India
