Mumbai runway closed after Turkish plane skids off

The main runway at Mumbai airport has been closed after a Turkish airline, with 97 passangers and crew on board, veered of the runwway on Friday morning. [caption id=“attachment_74946” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“DGCA has ordered a probe into the incident. Photo by Hamed Parham/Flickr”]  [/caption] Turkish Airways flight_TK 720_ veered off the taxiway after landing in Mumbai. The incident occurred at 4:13 am at Mumbai Airport’s Rapid Exit Taxiway - N8. All  passengers  and crew on board are safe, sad an official. The airline was arriving from Istanbul to Mumbai. Immediately after landing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport, it skid off the taxiway and got stuck in mud. As a result of the incident, the main runway has been closed for operations since the past  four hours till the aircraft is removed and a probe has been ordered by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) into the incident. Since the incident took place very close to the main runway, it led to 15-20 minutes delay in flight operations. Two flights were diverted. A Gulf-Air flight from Sharjah was diverted to Ahmedabad at 4.40 AM and another Singapore Airways cargo plane from Chicago to Mumbai was diverted to Chennai. Turkish Airways could not be contacted immediately for further details. On Wednesday, an Air India plane from Jeddah with 286 passengers and crew on board landed under emergency conditions at the airport here following suspected hydraulic failure, the second such incident in the week involving the state carrier. A day before, an Air India plane with 123 passengers and crew landed under emergency conditions at the Thiruvananthapuram airport after a minor defect was detected in its hydraulic system. Earlier on Monday, a Gulf Air plane with 137 passengers had skidded off the runway and got stuck in the mud at Kochi airport in bad weather, injuring seven passengers. Watch video: All 97 passengers on board Turkish Airways flight TK 720 are safe.