Last week, in an incident involving Jet Airways, a Boeing 737 aircraft skid in an aborted take-off incident at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. At that point of time, no further information was available, except that the plane had run into the sand, and that everyone was alright. The Jet Airways Riyadh to Mumbai flight was being operated as 9W523.

It now turns out, that there may have been more to the incident. Today, in a statement posted by Saudi Arabia’s Accident Investigation Bureau, they’ve disclosed that VT-JFS, the aircraft under question, had attempted to take off from a taxiway which was parallel to runway 33, the aircraft’s designated take-off runway.

The statement reveals that,

the aircraft accelerated with full take-off power and exceeded the taxiway onto [an] unpaved area ending up close to the exit of taxiway G4, north of taxiway K”

The board notes that visibility was high, with no obstacles or foreign-object debris found on the taxiway.

Here is the full statement.

The aircraft was operating with 141 passengers and 7 crew on board. I tried to map the possible scenario, and came up with this, with some help from Google Maps.

While a further investigation is underway, the Indian aviation regulator DGCA has suspended the licenses of both the pilots.

I am really not sure why there are so many such incidents happening, where pilots are taking Taxiways for Runways, but I am glad everyone is safe. The plane is still in Riyadh, as per FlightRadar24.

What do you make out of this incident?