Mumbai: An Air India aircraft overshot the Mumbai airport runway after touching down amid heavy rains Monday. The eventful landing saw the A320 aircraft suffer three tyre bursts, veer off the main runway into the unpaved portion, then onto a taxiway before it came to a halt. No passengers or crew were hurt.The incident occurred after AI 2744 from Kochi touched down on primary runway 27 at 9.27am. It veered about 16m off the runway, took out a few lights along the runway edge and taxiway and damaged a nearby signage before coming to a halt, said a source, adding the pilots then taxied the plane to parking bay. The aircraft sustained serious damage; the engine cowling was left partially deformed, and the tail section had foreign object damage. While a couple of flights close behind in the sequence to land continued with their landing, the main runway was shut down minutes after the accident. After the AI flight accident led to the closure of the primary runway, flight movements were moved to the shorter secondary runway of the Mumbai airport. A total of eight incoming flights were diverted to other airports, while three flights were forced to abort the landing and climbed for a second attempt at touchdown, said a source.The primary runway was repaired and reopened to flight movements at 12.03pm. A team from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation reached the airport to investigate the accident.Air India, in a statement, said: “Flight AI2744, operating from Kochi to Mumbai, experienced heavy rain during landing, resulting in a runway excursion after touchdown. The aircraft taxied safely to the gate, and all passengers and crew members have since disembarked. The aircraft has been grounded for checks.”A Mumbai airport spokesperson said that the airport’s emergency response teams were immediately activated to manage the runway excursion. “All passengers and crew are safe. There were minor damages reported to the airport’s primary runway — 09/27. In order to ensure continuity of operations, the secondary runway 14/32 was activated.”In the past, there have been quite a few incidents of runway excursions at Mumbai airport during the monsoon. In Sep 2023, a VSR Ventures Learjet 45 aircraft flying in from Visakhapatnam experienced a runway excursion on landing at Mumbai during heavy rains and poor visibility.
