NEW DELHI: An IndiGo aircraft arriving from Mangaluru suffered a minor bird hit while landing at Mumbai International Airport on Monday, while an Air India flight from Chennai diverted to Navi Mumbai after being held in a pattern and running low on fuel, multiple sources said.
IndiGo flight 6E 6523, which departed from Mangaluru at 11.18 am, suffered a “minor bird hit” during landing. “The flight was subjected to inspection. Since it was only a minor hit, the plane was permitted to take off for its next trip after a couple of hours,” a source said. Details of the damage were not available.
Air India flight AI 640 from Chennai could not land as scheduled. An airline source said, “The aircraft was in a holding pattern for some time due to congestion at the airport. A bird hit incident too contributed to the problem. The plane then performed a `go-around’ for a full circle of the airport.”
Another source said the aircraft had still not received clearance to land. “The fuel was running low due to the time spent waiting to land. So, a decision to divert to Navi Mumbai International Airport was taken.”
However, a source familiar with the developments denied that there was operational congestion at Mumbai airport. The source said the Air India aircraft was offered priority landing after completing the go-around, but the airline decided to divert to Navi Mumbai.