Turkish Airways’ flight TK-720, flying from Istanbul to Mumbai with 97 passengers on board, veered off Mumbai Airport’s rapid exit taxiway on Friday morning. All passengers and crew are safe.
The plane skidded off the taxiway after landing at the airport at 4.13 am.
An airport official said that the flight skidded off the rapid exit taxiway N8 and got stuck in the mud there. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has already ordered a probe into the incident.
The main runway of the airport has been closed since the early morning incident. There are expected to be delays in flight departures and arrivals as only one of the runways at the Mumbai airport is operational.
No passenger flights have been diverted from the airport. However, a freighter coming in from Singapore was diverted.
According to airport officials, efforts are underway to remove the aircraft and clear the runway for normal operations but it could take a day to complete the removal of the aircraft.
This is the second such incident to occur in the country during this week. On Monday, a Gulf Air plane with 137 passengers had skidded off the runway and got stuck in the mud at Kochi airport in bad weather, injuring seven passengers.