Mumbai: A potentially dangerous situation unfolded at Mumbai airport on Tuesday evening when an Air India aircraft and an Air India Express plane came face-to-face on the same runway, forcing the Air India flight to abort its take-off on instructions from air traffic control, sources said.
The incident took place around 10 pm when the Air India Express aircraft was still in the process of vacating the runway after landing, while the Delhi-bound Air India plane was preparing for take-off from the same strip, they said.
In a statement, an Air India spokesperson said the take-off run was discontinued after the crew received instruction from the air traffic controller. “The crew operating flight AI816 from Mumbai to Delhi on July 7 discontinued the take-off run after receiving an instruction to do so from the Air Traffic Control and returned to the bay,” the spokesperson said.
Specific details were not disclosed, as reported by Business Standard.
Flight AI816 on the Mumbai-Delhi sector was set to be operated with a wide-body Boeing 777-300 ER, while the Air India Express service AIX1547, which had come in from Siliguri, was a narrow-body Boeing 737 MAX 8, sources said.
A take-off run is the stage when an aircraft moves along the runway before building up enough speed to lift off.
The spokesperson said the aircraft would be inspected in line with standard operating procedures, and that arrangements were being made to get passengers to their destination at the earliest.
Further details, including how many passengers were on board the two aircraft, were not immediately available.
