Flight Operations At Mumbai Airport To Remain Suspended On Oct 17 For Maintenance Exercise

The two runways at Mumbai airport will remain closed for six hours for maintenance works on October 17 and during this period, there will be no flight operations. The maintenance work of both runways will be undertaken between 11 am and 5 pm, the airport operator said in a statement on Friday. A Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) has already been issued to the airlines and other stakeholders six months in advance. "As a part of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport's (CSMIA) comprehensive post-monsoon runway maintenance plan, both runways - RWY 09/27 and RWY 14/32 will be temporarily non-operational on October 17 from 1100 hours to 1700 hours," as per the statement.

This scheduled temporary closure is a part of CSMIA's annual post-monsoon preventive maintenance plan, it said.The facility, which is the second busiest airport in the country after Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, has two crossing runways-09/27 (main runway) and 14/32 (secondary runway).

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This maintenance exercise is scheduled post-monsoon, as Mumbai experiences heavy rainfall, which causes damage to the runway at times. In fact, the visibility during monsoons is very poor, and the issue caused a plane crash a few weeks back. The private jet the reportedly crashed at Mumbai Airport belong to VSR Ventures Learjet 45 aircraft with the registration VT-DBL. This aircraft was operating a flight from Visakhapatnam to Mumbai.

The unfortunate incident occurred during the landing on runway 27 at Mumbai Airport and was described as a "runway excursion" or veer-off. At the time of the incident, visibility was limited to 700 meters due to heavy rainfall. Onboard the aircraft were a total of 6 passengers and 2 crew members. Thankfully, there have been no reported casualties at this time.