Jammu, Jan 21: The passengers of the Delhi-Jammu-Srinagar flight (554) of IndiGo Airlines had a miraculous escape on Saturday when the pilot aborted the take-off at the last moment to avoid collision with a vehicle on the runway at Jammu Airport.
The flight was scheduled to take-off from Jammu Airport to Srinagar at around 9.45am, when an SRTC bus carrying stranded passengers to technical airport strayed on the runway. The airplane was carrying 160 passengers, while the SRTC bus was ferrying around 35 passengers.
Sources informed Greater Kashmir that the authorities were shifting the stranded passengers from Jammu Bus Stand to technical airport in SRTC buses through the Jammu airport route. “Two SRTC buses full of passengers had already crossed the runway of the Airport”, an eye-witness said.
He added that unaware about the IndiGo flight getting ready for the take-off, the third passenger bus strayed on the runway leading to a near collision. “The airbus was in full speed when the pilot noticed the bus on the runway”, eyewitnesses said adding, “The pilot used emergency breaks to stop the plane avoiding the collision”.
Panic struck among the passengers of bus and the aircraft and the ground staff of the airport also rushed to the spot. Later the runway was cleared.
“It was a miraculous escape and the pilot of the airbus deserves appreciation for his timely action”, an official at the airport opined.
However, SP Airport ML Mehra said that the incident was not major and there was never any threat to the passengers. “It was merely a diversion of flight, which later took-off smoothly for Srinagar,” he said.
Interestingly the senior officers of Airports Authority of India and Police were supervising the process to shift stranded passengers to the technical airport.
Taking strong notice of the mistake committed by the ground staff, the Airports Authority of India has reportedly initiated an internal probe. “The authority has initiated an enquiry in the episode while a team from Bureau of Civil Aviation is likely to arrive in Jammu to probe the matter,” sources said.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:00 IST