Four flights heading to Pune were diverted to Mumbai — one was cancelled, while seven were rescheduled after a military aircraft developed a technical snag at the Pune airport, thereby blocking the runway for about four hours on Thursday.
A Sukhoi SU-30 fighter aircraft, based at the Lohegaon Air Force Station skidded off the runway after developing a problem in the nose wheel and affected domestic flight operations. The airport is originally an airbase of the Indian Air Force and shares the runway with the domestic flights.
The problem occurred around 9.15 pm and lasted till 1.30 pm after which all operations came back to normal. One flight each of SpiceJet,Go Air, Kingfisher and Jet Airways, which were going from Delhi to Pune were diverted to Mumbai while a Mumbai-Pune Jet Airways flight was cancelled. “The seven other flights that were affected and rescheduled include two from Jet Airways (Delhi-Pune-Hyderabad and Bengaluru-Pune- Bengaluru), two from Indigo Airlines (Bangaluru-Pune-Delhi and Chennai-Pune-Chennai), two Air India (Hyderabad-Pune-Goa and Goa-Pune-Hyderabad) and one Kingfisher (Bangalore-Pune-Goa)”, said Pune airport director P.S.R.K. Sudhakar.
An official statement from the IAF said, “Due to a problem in the nose undercarriage of a SU-30 Aircraft there was a runway blockage at 9.15 am at the Pune Airbase on April 19. The runway was cleared foe operations at 1 pm.”
A spokesperson from the Mumbai International Airport Limited said that four flights were diverted to Mumbai while one flying from Mumbai to Pune was cancelled. “Flight operations in Mumbai were not hit since it was not during the peak hours and other flights were delayed by only a margin of ten to fifteen minutes,” he said.