Russian cargo charter suffers tyre burst at Mumbai airport

The flight operations at the airport, however, were not affected as the authorities activated the secondary runway for all incoming and outgoing flights, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said in a statement here.

"At about 12.43 pm, airport airside team detected a landing Russian charter cargo aircraft (AN 74) had caught fire as a lot of smoke was seen from undercarriage. It immediately coordinated with ATC and found that both the starboard tyres had burst following which thick smoke and fire was seen," MIAL said.

The airport apron control requested Air Traffic Control to advise the pilot to switch off the engines, it said adding the fire service personnel were called in and all emergency systems activated.

The aircraft was stuck on taxiway N7 due to which RWY 27 (main runway) was blocked for three hours and it was taken off the runway at 15.43 pm after replacing the tyres, the statement said.