Seven Mumbai-bound flights were diverted to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International (SVPI) airport in Ahmedabad on Thursday evening as the Mumbai airport runway was closed after a private jet skidded off and crashed while landing.
These include flights from Goa, Bhubaneshwar, Delhi and Male among others. Three international and four domestic flights were diverted to the SVPI airport. Sources confirmed an Ahmedabad-Mumbai flight was cancelled due to heavy rain, poor visibility and operational constraints.
Amid heavy rains, the private jet skidded off the runway at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai and crashed at 5.02pm, leaving all eight passengers and pilots injured. Following the incident, all flights were diverted to Goa and Ahmedabad, which are the nearest international airports to Mumbai.
“The teams of the SVPI airport have been kept on standby on the airside to ensure smooth operations. Airlines as well as security agencies are coordinating for smooth transit of flights,” a source at the airport told TOI.
Meanwhile, the air traffic controller at the SVPI airport doubled up efforts to ensure that the regular scheduled aircraft movement was not disrupted in the wake of the sudden increase in air traffic.
The aircraft was owned by an infrastructure firm, Dilip Buildcon, based in Bhopal. The runway was closed for about an hour and was opened for operations around 7pm.
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