Boeing 737 Remained At End Of Runway For Four Days

The Air Sahara Boeing 737 that blocked traffic on the main runway at Mumbai, India's international airport could have been moved sooner -- but airport officials had no guarantee from the airline that it would pay for freeing the aircraft from the soft dirt in which it was stuck.

As Aero-News reported last week, the Air Sahara 737 skidded off the end of the runway and became mired in the soft earth there. It remained at the end of the runway for four days before some 200 workers and several rail cars were used to move the aircraft back onto the tarmac.

"We did not know if Air Sahara would pay us for recovering the disabled aircraft as no authority from Sahara approached us with the required go-ahead," Air-India airport manager, Vidya Lokhande told the Mumbai Mid-Day News.

"After the skid, Air Sahara officials wrongly assumed that the removal of the aircraft was a responsibility of the Airport Authority of India. Actually, according to International Civil Aviation Organisation rules the recovery of a disabled aircraft is the sole responsibility of the airline," another airport official told the Mid-Day News.

Dozens of flights were delayed up to several hours while the 737 sat at the end of the runway. Passengers became so fed up that a sort of lynch mob formed on Thursday, intent on getting some answers from India's transport minister. Hearing that a crowd was looking for him, the minister surreptitiously ducked out a back door at the airport.

Finally, someone at Air Sahara apparently wised up to the situation. "Air Sahara had to promise us a payment of nearly Rs 40 lakh for removal of the aircraft. We had to be certain where the money was going to come from," Lokhande said.

Her remarks were later disavowed by Air India. Another unidentified spokeswoman told the Mid-Day News, "Air-India did its best to in the given conditions and finally removed the aircraft."

FMI: www.mumbaiairport.com