Pune Airport reopens: Flight operations resume following IAF jet incident

New Delhi: Flight operations resumed at Pune Airport on Saturday morning after the Indian Air Force restored a runway damaged by the hard landing of a frontline military aircraft the previous evening.

The facility had been forced to suspend all arrivals and departures on Friday night as the strip was rendered unusable following the incident.

"The runway at Pune Airport, which was temporarily unavailable due to an incident involving an Indian Air Force aircraft, has now been restored and declared operational," the IAF stated in a brief release issued Saturday.

The air force confirmed that "all necessary safety inspections and clearances have been completed" and noted that "operations are resuming in a phased manner."

The disruption originated from what officials described as a hard landing by an IAF aircraft, which prompted an immediate closure of the strip for emergency repairs and safety assessments.

Pune Airport functions under a dual-use framework, in which civilian commercial traffic shares the infrastructure with an active Air Force station. The temporary closure resulted in several flight cancellations and diversions before the military gave the all-clear for the resumption of scheduled service.

With inputs from PTI