Mumbai: The main runway of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) was shut down for operations after a Lufthansa flight was stuck following four tyre bursts on Friday night.
The aircraft has so far not been towed away, an airport official said. The Mumbai airport opened up the secondary runway for operations following the incident that caused delays and diversions.
According to a Lufthansa official statement, on arrival at the Mumbai airport, on May 13 at local time 10.50 pm, four tyres of the Munich-Mumbai flight LH764 were found damaged. The plane could not be moved from runway-27. On board the Airbus330 D-AIKR were 163 passengers who had to leave the plane via stairs positioned in the runway. Lufthansa said the plane would be removed once all four tyres were replaced. Following this incident, LH765 on Saturday had to be cancelled affecting 223 passengers who were being rebooked on other flights.
It also led to other flights being cancelled or delayed. The Cathay Pacific cargo service was diverted to Hyderabad and Air India AI-191, United Airlines UA049 and Singapore Airlines SQ423 were delayed. An SIA spokesperson said that Flight SQ423, an Airbus A380 with 427 passengers and 25 crew bound for Singapore from Mumbai on May 13 2016, was delayed due to a temporary runway closure. It added that the passengers were provided hotel accommodation and were told that a revised departure time would be determined when the runway is reopened.
