Preliminary report out on July Air India incident where plane skidded off runway at Mumbai airport: Here’s what investigators found

An Air India plane that went off the runway at Mumbai airport on 21 July suffered engine and tyre damage, according to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) preliminary report.

The Airbus A320 neo, operating Air India flight AI 2744 from Kochi to Mumbai, was carrying 182 people, including two cockpit crew and five cabin crew members. Thankfully, no one was injured in the incident.

The report said the aircraft “made a touchdown on the right edge” of Runway 27 while landing. It added, “Subsequently its right-hand main wheels and nose wheel entered a grassy area on the right side of runway. The aircraft continued its landing roll on the grassy area until the intersection of the runway whereby the aircraft was brought back to the centreline of the runway. The aircraft later taxied on its own power to the bay K5L and parked normally.”


When officials inspected the plane, they found “main wheels 2, 3, and 4 were found deflated, cut marks were noticed on main wheels no 2, 3 and 4.” The second engine was also affected, as “the cowl of the second engine was damaged.” The report added that damage was visible “on both left-hand and right-hand sides.”

AAIB also noted that “grass ingestion [was] found in right-hand and left-hand main landing gear and nose landing gear (NLG) area.”

The final investigation report is yet to be released.