Flight services resume at Kochi Airport

NEDUMBASSERY: The flights which were suspended since Monday morning at Kochi Airport following the Gulf Air flight mishap resumed in full stretch on Tuesday morning.The normal procedure to lift the aircraft from the muddy area turned impossible forcing the CIAL to make special arrangements to bring heavy cranes, wooden planks and steel plates. The CIAL also managed to co-ordinate with the Air India to use the disabled aircraft removal kit. Air India brought the kit in its ferry flight at 7 pm on Monday. It took about four hours to set up the equipment. The broken part of the nose-wheel was detached from the aircraft. The engine side was lifted from the muddy area using the airbags and kept above the ground using a hydraulic jack. The front part of the aircraft was placed on a trolley using cranes and towed away to taxi way near the proposed Maintenance Hanger site around 6.20 am, Airport Director A C K Nair said.The CIAL staff immediately started clearing the runway. They managed to clean 3400 metres of the runway length by 9 am and opened the runway for the aircraft to resume flights. All diverted flights have been intimated to return to the Kochi Airport. Meanwhile, the Ground Handling Agencies have begun the checking-in. Thousands of passengers were stranded in the airport due to the unscheduled closing of the airport and cancellation of flights. The ground handling agencies swung into action to clear the passengers. The Immigration and Customs personnel had a tough time in handling a large number of passengers. Meanwhile, the Immigration personnel were put to difficulties when the passengers of four flights who completed Immigration clearance were offloaded as the pilots hesitated to operate the flights as the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) was over. The Immigration Department has made special arrangements to clear the passengers without delay, SP M R Maniyan told Express.All the domestic flights resumed operations on Tuesday. In International sector, five flights departed from Kochi and four flights landed here by noon.