A Qatar Airways flight skidded on landing in rain-drenched Kochi on Friday. Luckily the pilots were able to control it and bring it back to the central line and none of the over 310 people on board were hurt. The return flight to Doha that this aircraft was to operate had to be cancelled.

In a statement, Qatar Airways said its flight QR 516 from Doha to Kochi “skidded during landing roll due to heavy rain and water on the runway, damaging a few runway lights. The aircraft taxied normally to the stand. Due to this incident the return flight QR 517 COK to DOH was cancelled. All passengers are accommodated on later flights. Qatar Airways is fully cooperating with local authorities. The safety and security of our passengers is our top priority.”

The Kochi airport said the aircraft had landed “off centred” due to adverse weather and that there wasno flight disruption due to this incident. The plane “with 306 passengers on board landed off-centered on runway, apparently due to the adverse weather build-up immediately prior to touch down at Kochi airport. There were no casualties reported and no flights were diverted,” Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) said in a statement.

The incident happened at 2.19 am on Friday. The weather at Kochi was “acceptable” when the aircraft was approaching to land there. However, there was a sudden weather build-up almost on the runway, with heavy rain and cross wind, causing the aircraft to touch down few meters off the pre-designated central line. Subsequently the pilot could manage to correct the deviation and the aircraft was brought back to the central line of the runway and then to the parking stand.

“Runway inspection by CIAL revealed that the incident caused damages to 12 lights fitted on the right edge of the runway. The debris was immediately removed and the runway was made operational at 3.38 am. No flights were diverted. There were two delays of few minutes reported; Fly Dubai bound for Dubai and Emirates bound for Kochi. A detailed investigation is being carried out by DGCA. Due to this incident the return flight QR 517 Kochi to Doha was cancelled. All passengers were accommodated on later flights,” the CIAL statement added.

Share This Post