On May 21, an Emirates Airlines flight had to make a quick 75-degree upward turn at the Mumbai airport. A passenger recounts the dangerous experience.
On May 21, Flight EK- 504 of Emirates Airlines with 200 passengers on board was approaching runway 14-32 of Mumbai airport, when it was suddenly put on hold, 70 seconds before landing time. It had to make a quick 75-degree upward turn. The reason: bird activity. A passenger recounts the dangerous experience
Birds on runways continue to threaten flight security at the Mumbai airport. The most recent incident involved a Dubai-Mumbai Emirates flight (EK 504), with 200 passengers on board, which had to hover overhead for nearly 20 minutes before it could land on May 21. It was put on hold as bird activity had been reported on runway 14-32 by an Air Deccan flight that had landed just two minutes earlier.
The flight, scheduled to land at 8.15 am, ultimately landed at 9 am. Ashok Patel, who was on the flight, spoke to DNA from Nairobi about his experience. “Just as we were about to land, the pilot gave us instructions to fasten our seat belts and we could see from our screens that our plane was approaching Bandra. We were about to touch the Mumbai runway,” said Patel. “But then we were shocked to see another domestic plane on the runway.”
The pilot immediately took off again, and after 20 minutes of circling the skies, he announced reproach landing.
“All of a sudden, we felt like we had made a somersault in the air... it was like being on a roller-coaster. All the passengers complained about it, but we didn’t know what was happening,” said Patel.
An Emirates official, seeking anonymity, later told DNA, “The domestic aircraft that was on the runway had been informed by the Air Traffic Control about birds on the runway. They were not supposed to fly if birds were spotted on the runway.”
Flight EK 504 was apparently flying over Vikhroli at 300 km/hr, and the time remaining to land was 70 seconds. It was two miles away from the runway, when it had to make a 75-degree upward turn.
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