Patna airport news updates: The Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport, is reckoned among the 20 busiest ones across the country. A SpiceJet aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at the Patna airport after the flight's left-wing caught fire Sunday afternoon.
At least 185 flyers aboard a Patna-Delhi SpiceJet flight had a miraculous escape on Sunday after reporting a technical glitch that prompted a fire in the aircraft. The crew and the Air Traffic Control (ATC) arranged an emergency landing of the aircraft at the Patna airport. Airport sources said that the flight was a Boeing 727.
Reason behind frequent accidents at Patna airport:
The airport at Patna city is marked as one of the country’s most critical airports due to its short runway. Of its 2,286m runway, only 1,954m actually remains available for use by the pilot for take-off because of the location constraints of the airport.
There is little scope for extending the runway as the airport has Peer Ali Path on its northern side and the Delhi-Howrah railway line on the southern side. It was in view of these constraints that talks for civil aviation operations from the Bihta airbase began in the year 2009. The Bihta airbase’s runway is around 2,500 metre.
However, the earlier reports on Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport noted in its observations about having a short runway, running about 6500 feet. The report said that it sufficed until the 1970s when only light aircraft were being operated from the airfield but requirements changed when big commercial jets like Boeing737 and Airbus 320 started running from the airport.
The runway length was extended to its present dimension which was the maximum the airfield could accommodate the report pointed out adding that it was causing operational constraints.
Some more reasons which are responsible for accidents:
As per additional reports, a lot of manoeuvring is required by pilots, both while landing as well as take off since besides the short runway the airport also has the disadvantage of densely populated residential localities and commercial establishments at a short distance and the slightest undershooting or overshooting could have catastrophic consequences.
Given the topography of Patna city, the current location of the airport is not suited for air traffic. In addition to the acknowledged pitfalls of a short runway, flights here routinely suffer bird hits since markets dealing in meat, fish and poultry are situated not too far away.
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