On Saturday evening, a passenger aircraft from Mumbai and another from Bangalore landed at Nagpur airport's runway even though it was unfit for handling flight operations and so should have been shut down temporarily. The revealing detail of the incident is that the safety norm was violated because the aviation officials concerned had poor knowledge and were ignorant of the rules.
The problems began around 2.30pm when a Cessna 152 aircraft, a two-seater plane belonging to the Nagpur flying club, touched down on runway 32 of Nagpur airport only to swing off a few seconds later to the left. The small, piston-engine aircraft ploughed into the mud and lodged itself a few metres off the runway.
"About five minutes later a call was made to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA) office in Mumbai and the official concerned in charge of investigation was informed,'' said a source. ``The DGCA officer instructed that the aircraft should not be removed till the time he flew down to Nagpur to investigate the matter," the source said.
"It was about 90 metre from the runway centerline, which meant that it was too close to the runway and so would need to be removed if other flight operations were to be allowed on the said runway,'' said the official. That is because according to the DGCA and the International Civil Aviation Organisation's "Clearway Standards", a distance of at least 150 m (500 feet) from the runway centerline should be kept free of obstacles or objects. A stranded aircraft within the clearway distance is a clear violation.
Even as the Cessna 152 aircraft lay close to the runway, a Jetlite Boeing 737 from Bangalore landed in Nagpur around 4.30pm and took off an hour later. Around 6 pm, an IndiGo flight from Mumbai landed in Nagpur and took off a while later for Kolkata.
22/04/13 Manju V/Times of India
