LUCKNOW: An IndiGo flight from Lucknow-Raipur narrowly avoided a collision with a monkey on Thursday after the animal strayed onto the runway moments after the aircraft began its take-off roll.IndiGo flight 6E6521, carrying around 170 passengers and crew, had received clearance from Air Traffic Control and had started rolling on runway 09 from the Kanpur highway end. Around 200 metres into the take-off roll, the pilots of the Airbus A320-251N spotted a monkey on the runway and immediately aborted the take-off to avoid a potential collision.Following the aborted take-off, the aircraft vacated the runway and returned to the apron via taxiway B. The flight, originally scheduled to depart at 8.55 am, eventually took off for Raipur at 10.04 am after a thorough inspection of the aircraft systems.The incident also briefly affected other air operations at Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport. Air India Express flight IX 1392 was forced to carry out a go-around and circled the Lucknow airspace twice due to concerns over monkey presence on the runway.According to an official source, this was the first time air operations at the airport were briefly disrupted due to a monkey entering the runway area. The source said the animal is believed to have entered the airport premises from a mango orchard in Rahimabad. “The runway was cleared of any monkey presence before permitting other aircraft to land or take off,” the official added.
