It was a day of averted disasters at the Chennai airport on Thursday. As many as 193 passengers had a narrow escape when a SpiceJet aircraft made an emergency landing after its tyre burst.
About half an hour later, an Ethiopian Airlines Cargo flight ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing. As the SpiceJet plane remained stranded in the main runway, it had to be closed for four hours. Hundreds of passengers suffered as six flights were diverted and several others delayed.
At 2 p.m., SpiceJet’s Boeing 737 aircraft with the 193 passengers and six crew members left for Delhi. Within minutes, a pilot of another aircraft noticed a patch of oil on the runway where the flight had been parked, and alerted the Air Traffic Controllers. Officials then conducted an inspection of the runway and found not only an oil spill, but also pieces of the burst tyre.
