The flight operations were restored on the main runway of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) on Saturday night, nearly 22 hours after it was shut down following the burst of four tyres of a lufthansa aircraft arriving in the city from Munich burst late on Friday night.
“The operations on the main runway of the airport were restored at 9 pm, after the affected aircraft was towed away and the strip was thoroughly inspected,” Mumbai Interna-tional Airport Pvt ltd spok-esperson said late in the night.
The affected aircraft of flight lH764 was towed away from the main runway at around 8 pm on Saturday. However, all through Saturday, the main runway had remained shut for operations. As a consequence, the authorities operated domestic flights from the secondary runway although the day.
Soon after the aircraft was towed away from the main runway, the airport authorities inspected the runway and gave a go-ahead for the restoration of flights.
Four of the ten tyres on the lufthansa’s Airbus A330 aircraft burst while it was landing at the Mumbai airport from Munich at 10:50 pm on Friday.
“On 13th May at 10:50 pm local time, four tyres of the aircraft of flight lH764 from Munich to Mumbai had been damaged. The plane could not be moved from runway 27 for the time being. 163 passengers were on board the Airbus A330 D-AIKR. They had to leave the plane via stairs, positioned on the runway. The plane will be removed from the runway after the assembly of four new tyres. Flight lH765 of 14th Mai had to be cancelled. 223 passengers will be affected and lH is trying to rebook them on other flights,” a statement issued by lufthansa stated.
lufthansa airline said that four new tyres were being mounted in order move aircraft from the runway.
Though the MIAl opened up the secondary runway for regular operations after the incident, the mishap resulted in both flight cancellations and delays in the operation of international and domestic flights.
While a Cathay Pacific cargo flight was diverted to Hyderabad, some other flights were directed to offload cargo to operate from the secondary runway which does not enable a longer take-off run.
The Singapore Airlines (SIA) had to delay the departure of its flight bound from Mumbai to Singapore. “Flight SQ423, an Airbus A380 bound for Singapore from Mumbai on 13 May 2016, is delayed in Mumbai due to a temporary runway closure. There were 427 passengers and 25 crew members on board. Passengers have been provided with hotel accommodation and a revised departure time will be determined when the runway is reopened by the authorities,” an SIA spokesperson said.