Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Investigation Into Buffalo Breach at Airport Reaches Conclusion

An investigation to find out how a buffalo ended up undetected on an airport runway as a jet was about to take off and to prevent such an incident happening again has reached its conclusion: build a better wall.

Two weeks after a Boeing Co. jet with 146 people on board crashed into a buffalo on the runway while preparing to takeoff from Surat airport in Gujarat, officials there say they are now working to reinforce part of the boundary around the airfield.

The 737-800 aircraft, part of Indian budget airline SpiceJet Ltd’s fleet, rammed into the buffalo that had wandered into Surat airport in Gujarat earlier this month.

“After investigations, it was decided to build a 300-meter boundary wall to replace an iron fencing,” Pramod Thakre, the recently-appointed director of Surat airport, told India Real Time.
He said the airport has a 12.5 kilometer-long boundary wall, except in one 300-meter-portion where the buffalo would have likely wandered through onto the runway.
25/11/14 Santanu Choudhury/Wall Street Journal
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