New Delhi, Jun 9: Almost 140 people on Air India's Delhi-Jammu flight on Friday afternoon had a narrow escape when the plane could not stop in time on the runway and went into the kutcha area at the end of the small airstrip in Jammu.
According to sources, AI 821 had 134 passengers on board when the 23-year-old old Airbus A-320 (VT-ESL) touched down in Jammu. "The preliminary information is that pilots applied emergency braking too but the plane did not stop on the runway and overshot it. Four tyres got deflated. Passengers were evacuated using emergency chutes," said an official.
All passengers are learnt to be safe. However, it could not be ascertained by the time of filing this report if some people on board AI 821 sustained injuries during evacuation.
AI was going to very soon retire the classic A-320 which was among the first batch of planes erstwhile Indian Airlines had received in December 1994.
The critical for defence purposes Jammu runway is closed for other flights till the stuck aircraft is removed. All flights have reportedly been cancelled till the plane is removed. This includes the return flight VT-ESL had to operate to Delhi. Aircraft operations in Jammu take place only till sunset and unless the old Airbus is removed quickly, flight resumption may take a long time.
In fact, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had earlier this year asked airlines to station aircraft removal kits and trained personnel to operate them at its airports during meetings for deciding this summer schedule as sensitive defence airstrips are often blocked by schedule carriers' planes that get stuck there due to technical reasons for several hours, the. And IAF had warned that if airlines fail to do so their permission to operate flights to IAF airports like Jammu, Srinagar, Pune and Chandigarh could be cancelled this summer.
The minutes of a meeting aviation authorities had with airlines to finalise this summer schedule of domestic flights quote the the IAF representative saying: "Removal of disabled aircraft from runway: Operators are requested (to) provision equipment and trained manpower for removal of disabled aircraft from runway as this has serious aerospace safety ramifications. The approval of summer schedule is provisional and subject to operators fulfilling these conditions meticulously. Default, on this account, would render the clearances granted automatically invalid for operations of flights under summer schedule to IAF bases."
Schedule Indian carriers operate regular flights to about 20 defence airfields that have a civil enclave or passenger terminal. These include IAF bases like Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Bikaner and Naval bases like Goa's Dabolim and Vishakhapatnam. All these airports have only one runway. If a plane gets stuck there, the forces are unable to operate their fighter jets - something that has security implications.
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