On July 1, a SpiceJet Boeing 737 overran a runway while landing at Mumbai (India) International Airport. The next day, another SpiceJet 737 veered off a runway at Kolkata, bringing to five the number of runway excursions suffered by carriers in India in a three-day period.
This spate of runway excursions painfully demonstrates that one of the industry’s oldest issues — an airplane veering off or overrunning the runway surface following a landing or a rejected takeoff — represents a serious and potentially fatal risk that deserves our ongoing attention.
Excursions have been occurring for decades, but in recent history, the most significant year was 2005, when an Air France Airbus A340 overran the runway while landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport and a Southwest Boeing 737 overran a runway at Chicago Midway. In both cases, weather and the condition of the runway were factors. In the Chicago accident, a 6-year-old boy was killed when the accident aircraft struck th…
