Three risky spots at Mumbai airport, says MIAL

On April 19 at 1.36pm, a Kingfisher Mumbai-Bhavnagar flight with 30 passengers on board was cleared for take-off by the Mumbai air traffic control. Just then, a Goair Delhi-Mumbai flight carrying 120 passengers landed and was instructed by the ATC to clear the runway.

However, the Goair pilot could not stop the aircraft at taxiway N7 and shot ahead to taxiway N8, which was closed. He had to vacate through taxiway N9. Thankfully, the Kingfisher pilot was aware of Goair’s presence on the runway and aborted take-off, averting a possible disaster.

According to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) taxiway N8 is one of the three spots in the operations part of the airport it has identified as risky. “Our runway safety team has identified three high-risk areas at Mumbai airport and has notified pilots and airlines about them,” said Bryan Thomson, director (operations), MIAL.

The other two spots are the intersection point of runway 09-27 and 14-32, and taxiway Q. “These spots have a history of runway incursions. We have asked pilots to be more careful when operating near them,” he said. MIAL, is observing air safety week from August 16, during which a workshop on runway excursion was organised by representatives of International Air Transport Association (IATA) for airlines officials.

“One of the suggestions was to follow missed-approach procedure in which when the pilot is not sure of a safe landing does a go-around. Crew resource management has also been suggested — a senior commander with years of experience and a junior pilot exchange knowledge while flying,” he said.

With the main runway set to close down during year-end for six months from 9am to 5pm, the number of flights operated during the winter schedule is also likely to go down by 10%. “We have seen that airlines tend to overbook slots. Hence, we will not give them the overbooked slots, which will lead to reduction of 10% flights in the winter schedule,” he said.