Article Posted on : - Mar 25, 2015

The C130J Hercules at the Juhu airport. A PTI photo

MUMBAI (PTI): A Hercules C130J, one of India's biggest defence cargo plane, on Tuesday landed on the tiny runway at the Juhu airport in Mumbai as part of a military exercise, the first fixed-wing aircraft to land on the airstrip in over four decades.

The Hercules C130J was flown to Juhu as an exercise to see if the airport in the western suburbs of Mumbai could be used in case the city's main airport is attacked, defence sources said.

They said the massive transport plane, used to carry troops and supplies, stood at Juhu for 10 minutes before flying out.

Most aircrafts of this size require a runway with conventional dimensions of a fully functional airport, but the Hercules can land on much shorter lengths of unpaved or paved runways, they said.

The runway at the Juhu aerodrome is about 3,750 feet long, very short compared to the 12,008 feet long runway at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA).

Earlier in August 2013, the Hercules C130J had landed at the Daulat Baig Oldie runway in Ladakh - one of the highest and most inhospitable runways in the world.

The last time a fixed-wing aircraft, a Japanese airliner, had landed on the Juhu strip in 1972.