MUMBAI: Forty-two passengers on board a Kingfisher flight had a close brush with catastrophe when their aircraft skidded off the runway moments after landing at Mumbai airport on Tuesday afternoon. Flight IT 4124 from Bhavnagar landed and was moving towards a taxiway to vacate the runway. But instead of turning right onto the taxiway, the plane skidded off the runway and into a grassy patch. There were no casualties.

Preliminary reports said the pilot could not control the aircraft's speed while vacating the runway. Low visibility and the wet tarmac aggravated the situation. As repairs were on, only a shortened runway-roughly half the usual length-was available for operations. Officials said that the short length left no margin for error. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered an enquiry into the incident. Its head, Naseem Zaidi, said DGCA had issued an instruction to all airlines not to land on a wet runway while shortened-runway operations were on. "We'll investigate as to which airlines violated the instruction," he said. However, air traffic control officials said they had received no intimation about such an instruction.

The ATR aircraft went approximately 150 metres off the runway after landing at 4.36 pm. Though it tilted awkwardly to the left after hitting the grass, no casualties were reported, though some passengers sustained minor injuries. A rescue team was sent immediately to help passengers vacate the plane, and they were brought to the terminal building by around 5 pm. Runway operations were suspended till 6.20 pm to smooth out glitches.

"The aircraft landed as per schedule and was headed for taxiway N10 at the far end of the runway. However, just before it was to turn right for N10, it skidded into the grassy patch. It took a couple of minutes before the pilot could stop the engines," an airport official said.

Officials said the plane couldn't get its speed under control immediately after landing. "The aircraft is supposed to drop its speed drastically after it touches the runway," a source said. On the shortened runway, it ran awry, unable to brake hard on time," a source said. "Additionally, the runway was slippery due to the rain," he added. Officials said the plane's speed on the runway was around 30 knots, but should have been 15-20 knots.

This is the second near-catastrophe on a Tuesday since weekly repair work started three weeks ago. Last week, a GoAir plane descended too low near the construction site on the runway.

"No operations should have been permitted on a wet runway when only a short landing distance was available. A wet surface and a short distance are the perfect recipe for disaster. Even a small aircraft like an ATR requires more space in adverse weather conditions," said air safety expert Capt Mohan Ranganathan. "Had it been a bigger jet, it would have headed towards the Hindustan Petroleum storage tank located just 200 metres from that end of the runway," he added.

Eight incoming flights were diverted, and delays of upto an hour continued late at night. "As many as 20 flights were arriving to land at the same time," a traffic controller said.

Confirming the incident, a Kingfisher spokesperson said all 42 passengers and four crew members were unhurt. The airline would conduct a full enquiry into the incident, he added.