After a chartered flight from Vishakhapattnam veered off the runway while landing at the Mumbai airport on Thursday amid heavy rains, all the eight people, who were onboard, have been hospitalised with injuries, according to an official at the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
It has been reported that, following the incident at little past 17:00 hours, both runways at the Mumbai airport were shut for a brief period, and one of the runways resumed operations at around 18:47 hours.
What did DGCA say?
“VSR Ventures Learjet 45 aircraft VT-DBL operating flight from Vizag to Mumbai was involved in runway excursion (veer off) while landing on runway 27 at Mumbai airport,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
According to DGCA, the aircraft had skidded off the runway due to poor visibility following heavy rain.
The regulator also said the visibility at the time of the incident was 700 metres with heavy rains.
What did Mumbai Police say?
According to Mumbai Police, the eight injured include a woman, and the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft.
One of the passengers is a Danish citizen, according to a police source.
In a statement, Mumbai airport said the incident occurred at approximately 1708 hours.
"There are no casualties. CSMIA's (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport) airside team is on-ground to assist with the clearance on-site," it added.
The runway 27 is now open for operations post DGCA and ATC clearance at 1847 hours, one of the officials said.
An AAI official said that the flight operations at the airport remained shut for about one hour and 45 minutes before one runway was made functional. During this period, a number of flights were diverted to other airports.
