Runway damage delays flights

Tirupati: The newly-laid runway at Tirupati International Airport was badly damaged when Air India flight between Tirupati and New Delhi via Hyderabad, AI-541, was trying to take off on Tuesday.

The flight reached Tirupati at 1.20 pm and was to leave again for New Delhi at 2.15 pm. As it was the Jumbo jet with seating capacity of 300, it could not take off on the existing runway and has to go further towards Kurrakalva where the runway was being extended due to changes of some parameters made on account of winds and bad weather. It was learnt that tar was laid on this extended portion only two days ago.

When the flight having four jet engines was about to take off, cracks and potholes had surfaced on the edge of runway due to the thrust from engine damaging it badly. The fact that debris had to be lifted in nine trucks shows the magnitude of the incident.

Airport authorities said that the runway was closed for almost three hours to make repairs to facilitate other flights to have incident-free take off and landing. Only after the work was completed, the runway was opened again for flight traffic. As a result, the schedules of seven flights got delayed.