Singapore Airlines flight approaches wrong airport in Mumbai, diverted after Air Traffic Control notices; carrier denies charge

On Monday afternoon, a Singapore Airlines flight caused a major scare by nearly landing at Mumbai’s Juhu airport after the pilot reportedly mistook its runway for the assigned runway of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport (CSIA). The flight, with 245 passengers and 14 crew members on board, was forced to discontinue the approach to landing and do a “go-around” by Air Traffic Control (ATC). The flight finally landed at the assigned runway nine minutes behind the scheduled time.  However, the airline denied the ATC charge, saying it discontinued its approach because of “poor visibility”.   [caption id=“attachment_1121959” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “Singapore Airlines flight SQ422, operating from Singapore to Mumbai on 4 December, was scheduled to land on runway 09 at CSIA at 10:35 am. Due to poor visibility conditions, the crew discontinued the approach to runway 09 at approximately 1,000 feet, in accordance with standard operating procedures,” the airline said. “The ATC Mumbai then vectored the flight for a subsequent approach onto runway 09 and the flight landed uneventfully at 10:44 am. At no time did the pilots of SQ 422 mistake Juhu airport as Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport,” it said. However, an ATC source was quoted as saying by news agency PTI that the flight was asked to do a go-around as the aircraft was noticed “moving towards Juhu airport runway”. The two runways, at Juhu and at CSIA, are about a kilometre apart and the Mumbai ATC has an alert in place for pilots. According to a report in  The Indian Express, the Juhu runway is much shorter than the CSIA runway, and an erroneous landing could have resulted in an overrun. Officials were quoted as saying in the report that an issue with the Instrument Landing System (ILS), that allows airlines to continue operations in low visibility conditions, could have been the reason for the confusion. “The Singapore Airlines pilot was in touch with the Mumbai ATC and the flight was supposed to make an approach for runway 09 of the Mumbai airport. On a preliminary basis, the pilot was unable to judge the direction due to an issue with the ILS at the Mumbai airport. Immediately after the Juhu ATC learnt of the error, the officials alerted the pilot and the Mumbai ATC,” said a Juhu airport official.  “The error was rectified on time. The aircraft was then diverted to the Mumbai airport runway.” With inputs from PTI