DGCA report on Sahara incident soon

Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will submit its preliminary report on Air Sahara's aircraft that overshot the runway at Mumbai airport to the ministry of civil aviation soon.

"DGCA has started their enquiry into the incident and will submit their preliminary report to the ministry soon," industry sources said.

The aircraft which skidded off the runway on October 9 was finally brought into the hangar on Thursday, following salvage efforts that lasted three days.

The incident which happened on Sunday resulted in a three-hour delay for almost all airlines to and from Mumbai. Soft land surrounding the runway made it harder for the retrieval team to rescue the aircraft.

Sources said, the causes of the incident could be from anything from error in judgement on the part of the pilots to technical glitches with the aircraft. "However, the occurence does seem abnormal, as speed of the aircraft was unusually high," airport sources said.

When contacted Airport Authority of India (AAI), the officials said the it would take appropriate action after the report submitted by DGCA. "The DGCA investigation is on, and we will take necessary action as per the to the orders of the regulator," they said.

Officials, agreed that such incidents highlight the need for an alternate runway, said: "The congestion at airport too could have led to the incident. But the fact that it took three days for the airport authorities to pull the aircraft into the hangar is shocking.

The delay has affected the operations of other airlines too," they said. Soon after the incident, many airlines had diverted their flights to Nagpur and Ahmedabad as they could not get a landing slot due to closure of main runway.