IAF C-17 Globemaster aircraft gets stuck on Leh airport runway, all commercial flights cancelled

The airport in Leh has been closed for commercial operations after the Indian Airforce's C-17 Globemaster aircraft got stuck on the runway on Tuesday.

The C-17 is facing serviceability issues after it landed at the Leh airport this morning and is in the process of being rectified.

The runway is expected to be made available for flying by tomorrow morning, according to IAF officials.

Domestic airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, SpiceJet and Vistara operate 10 flights to Leh every day.

“All flights have been cancelled for today and airlines will be informed if the runway could be operational as per schedule tomorrow,” an airport official said.

Domestic services severely hit

Vistara said its flight UK601 from Delhi to Leh (DEL-IXL) was returning to Delhi airport while IndiGo has cancelled all its flights due to the issue.

"#DiversionUpdate: Flight UK601 from Delhi to Leh (DEL-IXL) is returning back to Delhi airport (DEL) due to runway restriction at Leh and is expected to arrive in Delhi at 10:00 AM. Please stay tuned for further updates," Vistara tweeted.

"Hi, we truly regret the inconvenience. While it is never our intent to disrupt the travel plans of our flyers, however, all flight operations to/ from Leh are affected due to operational reasons beyond the control of the airline," IndiGo replied on several tweets complaining about the cancellations to Leh.

Air India also had to divert one of its flights to Srinagar and cancelled the second one. SpiceJet cancelled two of its three daily flights to/from Leh.