An Air India plane smashed into a wall on October 12 during take-off and then continued to fly.
Air India Boeing 737 had 130 passengers and six crew members on board when it hit an airport perimeter wall right after takeoff at the Tricky Airport in Tamil Nadu. Despite hitting the wall, the aircraft continued to fly for another four hours across the Indian Ocean and halfway to Dubai.
After two hours in the air, the plane was ordered to return to Mumbai, India, by ground control, for obvious safety reasons.
Air India Trichy pics coming in. Severe Boeing 737 damage pic.twitter.com/SJVGLiEQvx
— Tarun Shukla (@shukla_tarun) October 12, 2018
While no one was injured and the plane landed safely, pictures of the aircraft show a gaping hole in the underbelly.
“The aircraft hit the airport’s instrument landing systems (ILS) and then the compound wall,” Trichy Airport Director K. Gunasekaran told Indo Asian News Service on Friday.
Looks like Air India Express plane would have been badly damaged. The flight was going to Dubai from Trichy. In Mangalore crash it was coming from Dubai. All good thankfully. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/srWgaltY3w
— Tarun Shukla (@shukla_tarun) October 12, 2018
“We informed the pilot about the mishap,” Gunasekaran said. “The pilot said nothing was wrong with the plane as the systems were functioning normally. But we found some parts of the plane like an antenna on the ground.”
Air India is currently investigating the incident, though Hindustan Times reports that it looks like the pilot overshot the normal takeoff point as tire marks were found between the end of the runaway and the compound wall, according to an anonymous official.
