NEW DELHI, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Indian aviation authorities Friday ordered a probe after a passenger plane of Qatar Airways damaged runway lights while landing at an airport in the southern state of Kerala, sources said.
The incident took place at Cochin International Airport in Kochi city early Friday morning.
"While landing at the airport in heavy rains, the Doha-Kochi Qatar Airways flight hit the runway lights and damaged them. Fortunately, there were no casualties. A probe has been ordered into the incident to ascertain the exact cause of the damage," sources said.
Local media reports said that the airport runway was closed for a brief period to enable electricians to repair the lights.
The incident came just three days after a possible mid-air collision between two passenger planes was averted over the southern city of Bengaluru and a fortnight after some five people, including a pedestrian, were killed in a plane crash in India's financial capital Mumbai.
The 12-seater plane, a Beechcraft King Air C 90 turboprop, with two pilots and two engineers on board crashed on June 28 into an open area next to an under-contruction building and burst into flames just as it was about to land.
In February, a mid-air collision was averted in the Mumbai airspace between a passenger plane of private carrier Vistara and an aircraft belonging to national carrier Air India.
