NEW DELHI: A SpiceJet Bengaluru-Guwahati flight undershot the runway while landing at the destination on Friday (December 4). Luckily, while the Boeing 737 touched down before the designated point on the runway, it did so on the paved area and not on the unpaved part and had a safe landing.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has grounded the two pilots operating this flight, SG-960, and is probing this incident.
Comments from SpiceJet have been sought and are awaited.
Sources say due to “low clouds on short finals (just before landing), the pilots lost perception of altitude causing high descent rate which led to touchdown on threshold causing hard landing of 2.12G.”
The B737-800’s (VT-SLL) main wheel hit and damaged three runway threshold lights during landing.
This was the first flight of the day for this aircraft and the pilots. The journey was uneventful till the aircraft approached to land when low clouds possibly led to the pilots losing perception of altitude.
Fortunately, the aircraft touched down on pucca and landed safely. It was parked at bay and post flight inspection, say sources, revealed cut marks on a main parking wheel.