Saudi incident: 2 Jet pilots' licence suspended

The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended the licences of two Jet Airways pilots for attempting to take off an aircraft from a taxiway parallel to the runway at Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia last week.

“The DGCA has suspended the licence of both the pilots involved in runway excursion incident at Riyadh, pending investigations,” said a senior DGCA official said on Monday. There were in all 148 people — comprising 141 passengers and seven member-crew — at the time of mishap on Friday last. The passengers were evacuated safely and later alternative arrangements were made to fly them to India.

The incident took place at 0030 hrs local time (around 3 am, IST) on August  3, when Jet Airways Riyadh–Mumbai flight 9W-523 aborted take-off and departed the runway at the KKIA in the Saudi Arabian Capital of Riyadh. Meanwhile, the Aviation Investigation Bureau (AIB) of Saudi Arabia said in a statement that the Jet Airways Boeing 737 aircraft attempted to take off from the taxiway K, parallel to the Runway R33.