A private jet carrying eight passengers, including two crew members, veered off Runway 27 of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai during landing at around 5 pm on Thursday, leading to a crash. While no casualties were reported in the incident, sources confirmed that both the pilots and two passengers were injured in the incident and have been admitted to a private hospital in Juhu.
The incident even led to a temporary halt in flight operations for around 90 minutes, at the airport with flights being diverted to Goa and Ahmedabad.
The CSMIA spokesperson in a statement said, “On 14.09.2023, M/s VSR Ventures Learjet 45 aircraft VT-DBL operating flight from Vizag to Mumbai with 06 passengers and 02 crew members on board, veered off the runway at Mumbai International Airport. The incident occurred at approximately 17:02 pm today. There are no casualties. CSMIA’s airside team is on-ground to assist with the clearance on-site.”
While flight operations were halted after the incident, the spokesperson later confirmed that the runway opened “for operations post DGCA clearance at 18:47 after all safety checks were conducted.”
While four passengers including the two pilots have been admitted to Criticare Hospital, Juhu, the remaining four passengers were taken to airport prejudice centre. A source confirmed that the plane was carrying six senior officials of infrastructure firm Dilip Buildcon and they all are safe as of now. The source confirmed that the family members of all the passengers including the pilots have been informed and updated about their well-being.
Most Read
The official confirmed that for around 90 minutes that the flight operations were halted, flights were diverted either to Goa and Ahmedabad as per the orders given by ATC (Air Traffic Control).
Explaining the incident, a senior official at the airport said, “The airplane bumped, swinged and skidded on the runway. Normally, when a plane lands at Runway Number 27 it usually moves towards Juhu but the private plane swinged and moved backside. The plane direction changed due to the swing and turned 180 degrees.” He said that the plane crashed during the incident.
The senior official confirmed that all the flights had to be diverted for over an hour to Ahmedabad and Goa as the entire Mumbai airport had to be closed. “Flights had to be diverted as the weather was bad and also the runway 14-32 too could not be used as the location of the incident was very close to this runway.”
The official said while only one runway is used every day, on Thursday, runway number 27 was used for both landing as well as take-off.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
First published on: 14-09-2023 at 18:05 IST
