The incident took place a few minutes before the flight (IT-4579) coming from Kolkata was to touch down the tarmac.
The Kingfisher aircraft, which had opened its landing gear, was asked by the Air Traffic Control (ATC) to make a “go around” after the “obstruction” on runway was detected.
It took another 20 minutes for the ATC to give clearance to the hovering aircraft to finally land after the dog was shooed away.
“We had descended to nearly 300 metres and would have landed in a couple of minutes. But soon we noticed the aircraft suddenly started gaining height. It was then captain Ranjan Saikia announced that the ATC had found a dog on the runway and had, therefore, asked the pilot to make a go-around,” said S Bharti, one of the passengers.
An airport source confirmed the incident and said the flight which had taken off from Kolkata 15 minutes before its scheduled departure at 6:50 pm and was supposed to land at Patna airport at 8:05 pm, finally landed 25 minutes behind schedule at 8.30 pm.
Second incident
This is the second narrow escape for air passengers in Patna in recent times. In September last, 100 passengers on Delhi-Patna Jet Airways flight (9W 727) had a providential escape when the hydraulic pipe of the Boeing 737 aircraft burst while landing at JPN International Airport here.
The hydraulic system controls an aircraft’s undercarriage (wheels), brake and flight controls. Hydraulic oil, which is held under 3,000 pound pressure, flows through this hydraulic pipe. But since the hydraulic pipe was weak, it gave in when the flight was about to land here.