The only runway in active existence at the Chennai airport was shut for close to an hour on Friday night, after an Air India plane landed and stalled immediately after the landing sequence was through. Unfortunately, the plane had experienced a hydraulic system failure and had leaked oil along most of the runway, along its landing path — effectively making the runway unusable for the most part of an hour and delaying at least 14 flights that were set to depart and land.
An Airports Authority of India (AAI) spokesperson confirmed that the incident occurred at 8.26 pm and the plane had to be towed away after it stopped.
“The plane had intimated us that there may be a snag and when it landed, the oil leaked on to the runway. Our teams were ready and the clean-up process started immediately. There was so much oil that it took over 45 minutes to clear it. AAI is prepared for all such contingencies,” he said.
The spill was cleared by 9.18 pm and after an inspection, planes were allowed to use it again, shortly after.
During the closure of the runway, a Gulf Air plane had to be diverted to Bangalore.
What will particularly scare people is that the Maharaja’s Airbus A320 plane (AI 546) — flying 166 passengers from Hyderabad — developed a hydraulic failure and stalled immediately after it landed on the runway here. Hydraulic failures are labelled “rare but dangerous enough to cause major accidents” by international pilots and aviation experts. However, as most large jets have three hydraulic systems, planes can still land safely if one fails.
An Air India spokesperson downplayed the technical snag, saying that it was well under control. “When there is an issue like a hydraulic leak, the plane cannot move forward and needs to be towed. Our tractors managed to pull the plane to the bay by 9 pm and the passengers were off-loaded safely,” he said.
AI engineering staff will seek to repair the flight and an inspection report is likely to be sent to the DGCA.