E-Paper
IAF aircraft suffers tyre burst at Pune airport, flight operations hit
The tyre of Su30 MKI aircraft suffered a burst in the afternoon at Lohegaon airport, leading to the suspension of flight movement for two hours due to runway repair work, said officials
An Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft at Pune’s Lohegaon airport suffered a tyre burst on Wednesday and was stranded for some time before being cleared from the runway
According to officials, the tyre of Su30 MKI aircraft suffered a burst in the afternoon at Lohegaon airport, leading to the suspension of flight movement for two hours due to runway repair work.
An official statement from Pune Air Force stated, “A Su30 MKI aircraft had a tyre burst on landing at Pune airport leading to blockage of the runway. The IAF personnel cleared the aircraft in record time leading to minimise disruption of civil traffic in the afternoon of March 30.”
According to airport authorities, flight operations were affected for around two hours due to the repair work of the runway.
“The runway was shut for repair work from 1 pm and flight activity resumed again at 3.18 pm,” said Santosh Dhoke, Pune airport director.
Last year, the airport was partially closed as the authorities carried out runway re-carpeting work. Between October 16 to October 29, it was completely closed to finish the work. The re-carpeting was done by the IA F which controls the 2,530-metre runway and air-traffic control.
The two hours and 18 minutes delay cost a lot of inconvenience to flyers. People took social media to vent their anger.
A person with the Twitter handle Citizen of India tweeted, “Sheer torture of Indigo Airline passengers at Pune airport. An Unprecedented travel experience …no flight activity, no landing or take off since 11 am due to a defence aircraft tyre burst on d only one runway at Pune. Airlines have taken passengers for a ride.” (sic)
SpiceJet tweeted, “Due to runway closure in Pune (PNQ) till 1530 hours, all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights might get affected. Passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status.”
As per the schedule released by Pune airport, eight flights that were supposed to take off between 1 pm to 3.18 got delayed. The arrival of many flights was also delayed while there was no confirmation on the number by the airport authority.
At the same time, 6e 202 Indigo flight from Hyderabad to Pune which was to take off from Hyderabad at 4 pm has been rescheduled for 7.05 pm.
IndiGo message read, “Dear 6E customer, due to runway closure at Pune airport affecting our arriving aircraft, your flight 6E 202, HYD-PNQ on March 30, PNR XNDHUZ is delayed and your revised departure time is 1905 hours.”
“On March 30, flight I5-1426, operating from Pune to Jaipur, was delayed by 55 minutes, owing to unavailability of the runway. While the situation was beyond our control, we regret the inconvenience caused to our guests,” said spokesperson of AirAsia India.
Earlier in March 2019, another IAF aircraft suffered a tyre burst which forced the plane to remain stranded on the runway and resulted in civil flight operations getting affected.
