Heavy rain, coupled with poor visibility, and a mishap on runway 9/27 prompted the authorities on Tuesday night to suspend flight operations at the Mumbai airport till Wednesday morning, even as heavy downpour — accompanied by strong winds, lightning and thunder - disrupted normal life in the metropolis.
After having suspended the flight operations for half an hour earlier on Tuesday evening after visibility dropped well below the required 550 metre-mark, the airport authorities decided late in the night to suspend all flight operations till 5 am on Wednesday.
Apart from the poor visibility, the other reason that compelled the airport authorities to suspend the operations was: a SpiceJet aircraft with 183 passengers on board overshot the runway while landing and got stuck in the soft mud earlier in the evening. The incident involved SpiceJet’s Varanasi-Mumbai flight no. SG-703, which skidded and overshot the runway 9/27 after landing and got stuck in the soft mud owing to wet runway conditions.
All passengers deplaned safely and we’re guided to the arrival hall. The work was till midnight to extricate the stuck aircraft from the mud.
Till late in the evening, the operation of nearly 20 flights had been affected. Of them, seven were diverted to Hyderabad, Vadodara and Ahmedabad airports, while the rest of the flights forced to ‘go-around’ — a practice adopted to abort landing on final approach when the only runway was closed in the evening.
The airport handles around 930 arrivals and departures a day, with 42 movements per hour on an average.
According to informed airport officials, the visibility dropped to 250 metres at around 1849 hours (6.49 pm), prompting the airport authorities to suspend operations. The operations resumed at 7.16 pm after the visibility improved. However, all flight operations were suspended later in the night.
Meanwhile, the island city recorded 142 mm rainfall during the day while the suburbs registered 136 mm rainfall.
Meanwhile, IMD Mumbai has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall at few places with extremely heavy rainfall in Raigad district adjoining Mumbai is expected in the next 24 hours. Schools were instructed to remain closed on Wednesday for safety due to mixed predictions, says Maharashtra Education Minister Vinod Tawde.
Though there was no major disruption in suburban train services, there traffic disruptions all over the metropolis. Water-logging was reported from many parts of the city.