Scare at Mumbai airport,Jet hits parked Kingfisher

“This incident has been classified as a serious incident. An investigation has been ordered under the Aircraft Rules,” said DGCA chief S N A Zaidi.

The incident occurred at 2:30 am,when the Jet Airways plane,bound for Muscat and parked at ‘Bay 85’,was being pushed back by a tractor to enable it to taxi for take-off. During the pushback,the aircraft hit a stationary Kingfisher Airlines plane parked in the adjacent ‘Bay 84’,causing damage to the plane’s left horizontal stabiliser located in the fuselage.

“The wing-tip of the Jet Airways aircraft hit the left-hand stabiliser of our aircraft. The extent of the damage is being evaluated,” said Prakash Mirpuri,spokesperson,Kingfisher Airlines. Sources said the Kingfisher aircraft is likely to be grounded for two months due to the damage.

The Jet Airways aircraft,meanwhile,suffered damage to its wing tip and was grounded. The passengers were transferred to another aircraft,and the flight to Muscat (9W 540) finally took off after a six-hour delay.

In its preliminary inquiry,the DGCA has said the ground staff of Jet Airways did not follow proper procedures. “Preliminary facts prima facie revealed certain lapses on the part of ground technical personnel responsible for pushback. Proper procedure was not followed for the pushback operation. Overall,there was no coordination between the ground crew,” said a statement released by DGCA.

“Even if the aircraft are parked in adjacent bays,they are adequately separated. This shows negligence on behalf of ground handling staff,” said A Ranganathan,who is part of the DGCA’s air safety council.

The incident came just a few hours after a cargo flight,flying from Dubai to Bangalore,reported suspected fire and made an emergency landing at the airport at 6:24 pm on Friday.

At 11:30 pm,an Air India flight (AI 130),with 272 passengers from London,landed with a hydraulic fault. The aircraft was stuck at a critical rapid exit taxiway that was blocked for other flights for an hour,forcing the ATC to make an unplanned switch to the secondary runway.

In Mumbai,switching to the secondary runway takes at least half-an-hour. Also,the secondary runway handles a much lower capacity of flights per hour than the main runway,which leads to cascading delays. In this case,seven flights were diverted to other cities.

“Mumbai airport has become extremely crowded as the number of flights has almost doubled in the last few years leading to an increased aircraft movement on ground. There are higher chances of a mishap due to large traffic and shrinking space on ground,” said former DGCA chief H S Khola.