Navy cuts sorties to allow civilian traffic at Goa airport
October 28th, 2010 - 4:54 pm ICT by IANSPanaji, Oct 28 (IANS) In a gracious gesture, the Indian Navy, which operates Goa’s only airport, has cut its military sorties to allow the landing of five civilian aircrafts since Wednesday, said a navy press statement here Thursday.
Due to heavy fog and restricted visibility Thursday morning, pilots of a Qatar Air flight decided to divert to Shamshabad airport in Hyderabad and an Air India flight returned to Mumbai, said the statement of Commander P. Mathur.
“Later, between 9:30 a.m. and and 10:30 a.m., which is the exclusive military flying time, both the flights returned to Dabolim (in Goa) for normal operations,” the statement said.
A chartered flight from Amsterdam in Netherlands, scheduled to arrive at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, decided not to land at the Dabolim airport and chose to divert to Colombo. Similarly, a Jet Airways flight and a Qatar Air flight decided to divert to Mumbai and Bangalore respectively due to bad weather/visibility over the airport.
“The Indian Navy, however, again accommodated the landing of these two flights later in the day during the exclusive military flying time zone,” the statement said.
The official said that repairs to nearly half the length of the airport’s runway, damaged from oil spillage after a tanker carrying 6,000 litres of petroleum products overturned on the airstrip, were being carried out at full-swing and the 11,000-foot-long runway would be operational by weekend.
- Flights diverted, repairs on at Goa runway (Lead) - Oct 27, 2010
- Three flights diverted from Goa due to runway repairs - Oct 27, 2010
- Goa airport runway cut down for five hours a day - Apr 12, 2011
- Repairs restrict use of Goa airport runway (Lead) - Apr 12, 2011
- Front tyres of Air India plane burst, no casualties - Sep 06, 2011
- No safety norms violated in Goa: Kingfisher Airlines - Apr 13, 2011
- Plane removed, operations resume at Mumbai airport runway - Sep 05, 2011
- Sea Harrier tyre burst hits Goa airport flights - Jan 23, 2012
- Dutch flight to Colombo suffers bird hit in Goa - Oct 27, 2011
- Air India flight skids off runway in Kanpur - Jul 20, 2011
- Super jumbo makes emergency landing at Hyderabad airport - Oct 23, 2011
- 'New Karnataka naval base won't eat into Goa operations' - Sep 03, 2011
- Turkish Airlines plane skids; Mumbai airport shut till Saturday - Sep 03, 2011
- Kingfisher flight makes emergency landing at Goa airport - Oct 24, 2011
- Close shave for 250 as bird hits plane in Goa - Nov 11, 2010
Tags: air flight, air india, air india flight, aircrafts, airstrip, bad weather, chartered flight, civilian traffic, dabolim airport, flying time, full swing, gracious gesture, indian navy, jet airways, military sorties, oil spillage, panaji, petroleum products, qatar air, thursday morning