Mumbai Intl airport main runway still inoperable
03 Sep 2011
Mumbai: The main runway of Mumbai's Chhtrapati Shivaji International Airport remained shut through afternoon with a heavy monsoon downpour obstructing attempts to tow away a Turkish Airline plane stuck in mud near the taxiway, officials said. Television footage shows the front wheels almost entirely embedded in soft mud.
With mud turning to slush because of continuous rain, the movement of equipment for towing away the stranded plane has been made difficult.
A Turkish Airlines aircraft from Istanbul, with 104 passengers and crew on board, skidded off the taxiway at the international airport in the early hours of Friday. The landing gear of the Airbus 340-300 got stuck in mud near the runway, disrupting flight operations.
The arrival and departure of flights from the second runway is getting delayed by around 30 minutes, said a Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson.