The wheel of the Mumbai-Delhi G8-456 flight fell on the runway in Mumbai airport soon after the aircraft took off on Thursday afternoon.

None of the 123 people on board was hurt in the incident.  

According to a senior airport official, initial investigations reveal that the aircraft had undergone maintenance work earlier on Thursday. “There was some problem in the wing and it seems the nose wheel had been removed while repairing it,” the official said. “But the engineer probably forgot to fix it back.”

The Director General Civil Aviation (DGCA) today sought a detailed inquiry. “We have directed (Go Air) to suspend the air safety engineer and further inquiry is being carried out,” DGCA’s Kanu Gohain said.

The Airbus A-320 aircraft was inducted in the Go Air fleet in November 2007. The DGCA will also question officials from Airbus about the incident.

On Thursday, within minutes of the take-off at 2.23 pm, a Mumbai airport employee who was on runway to scare away birds, noticed the wheel missing. He alerted the Mumbai Air Traffic Controller, which informed the airline. The problem escalated for the airline staff since there was no way to ascertain whether the nose wheel or the rear wheel was missing.

The pilot, Captain Hardeep Singh, was informed about the missing wheel barely 35 minutes before landing. He did a low fly past to identify which wheel was missing and engineers on ground at IGI identified it. The aircraft finally landed on the primary runway on its rear wheels, with the pilot ensuring that the front wheel touched down as softly as possible.

The passengers in the first 11 rows were moved back and enough fuel was burnt to make the aircraft light.