Mumbai. 06 July 2019. MIAL announced that the primary runway 09/27 has been made available for normal operations from 1647 hrs IST.
This follows the successful recovery of the Spicejet aircraft and its subsequent shifting away from the main runway.
A 60 member team from MIAL’s Airside Operations, Maintenance, Projects and Fire team along with a 100 contract staff of AIC, worked day and night over 90 hours through incessant rains and created pathways to facilitate the disabled aircraft to be pulled onto firm ground after it was lifted from the mud by the Air India team using their Disabled Aircraft Recovery Kit (DARK) equipment.
Even as rains were pouring continuously, MIAL team worked 24 X7 to create a pathway of around 130 x 20 metres using stone bed and gravels. On top of the stone bed, steel plates and FRP sheets were placed to enable the Poclain equipment and Tow tugs tow the aircraft weighing around 41 Tonnes after it was emptied of all cargo and fuel. The lack of nose gear of the disabled aircraft presented a huge challenge to the MIAL team even as they worked through spells of pounding rain. To mitigate the impact of non-availability of nose gear, a trailer had to be positioned at the front of the aircraft to support it while the aircraft was being pulled from behind using poclain and tow tugs. All this while, every care was taken to ensure that the disabled aircraft is not damaged any further and that there is no safety incidents to staff engaged in the aircraft recovery.
team worked 24 X7 to create a pathway of around 130 x 20 metres using stone bed and gravels. On top of the stone bed, steel plates and FRP sheets were placed to enable the Poclain equipment and Tow tugs tow the aircraft weighing around 41 Tonnes after it was emptied of all cargo and fuel. The lack of nose gear of the disabled aircraft presented a huge challenge to the MIAL team even as they worked through spells of pounding rain. To mitigate the impact of non-availability of nose gear, a trailer had to be positioned at the front of the aircraft to support it while the aircraft was being pulled from behind using poclain and tow tugs. All this while, every care was taken to ensure that the disabled aircraft is not damaged any further and that there is no safety incidents to staff engaged in the aircraft recovery.
MIAL would like to thank Air India for deploying the DARK equipment successfully. MIAL would like to thank all stakeholders and travelers for their patience and sincerely regrets any inconvenience caused over the last three days.
