Sorry, wrong runway... A true story!!

I thought this could only happen in movies!!

Location: Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, India, aboard flight SQ421 from Mumbai to Singapore on April 11, 2008.

The flight was on time, boarding was proceeding smoothly. Once on board we were welcomed by the reassuring voice of the captain and the enchanting smiles of the flight attendants. Everything went by the manual and we left the gate five minutes before scheduled.

Then, it all began. After a wait of about 20 minutes on the taxiway, where we were treated to the sight of planes landing and taking off in front of us, the first announcement. At first it sounded like the too familiar "because of traffic congestion we will be a few minutes late." So far, no big deal.

Another 20 minutes or so go by and an angry captain starts saying "This is unbelievable," "I cannot believe it." He then tries to explain that the air traffic control (ATC) gave wrong directions and then he goes into some technical explanation of why we cannot take off from Runway 14, the one that had been assigned to our flight). He asks passengers to be patient -- as if we had any other choice -- and to wait a little bit more while he talks to ATC.

About an hour and a half after leaving the gate, the captain tells us that we have to go back to the gate and wait until the other runway, Runway 27, is available. He was furious. He kept saying "I have never seen anything like this," "It is unbelievable."

Once we were at the gate the captain explained what had happened. The plane, a B777-300 needs a full length runway to take off, but we were entering the runway at mid-point so the plane was supposed to go back and do a 180 degree turnaround to utilize the full length of the runway. However, because of the structure of the plane it was impossible to do the U-turn as there was some construction equipment near the runway and the pilot judged it to be too close to the runway to execute the maneuver safely. Moreover, the only way to access the runway at the top was to use two taxiways which were closed -- but not marked as such on the papers that the pilots receive from the airport authorities before the flight.

Result: We went back to the gate where we waited for about another hour until R27 was available. Total delay: three hours…

Unfortunately I have no way to hear the version of the ATC Mumbai, so I'll take the captain's word for it.