Police personnel push the aircraft of chief minister Naveen Patnaik at the Rourkela airstrip on Saturday. 

The runway had to be cleared for the aircraft of Vice-President Hamid Ansari to land. Ansari had arrived in the city to inaugurate the Biju Patnaik Rural Hockey Championship. Naveen’s aircraft landed in Rourkela at 11.15am with Ansari scheduled to arrive 30 minutes later. 

Sources said Naveen’s aircraft had not been parked properly, thus making it difficult for another plane to land on the small airstrip. According to the sources, Naveen’s pilot had left along with his co-pilot after parking the aircraft in Bay 1 where Ansari's flight was supposed to land. 

When the pilot of the incoming flight asked the Air Traffic Control to clear Naveen’s aircraft from the runway, the ground staff panicked and asked police personnel to push it out of the way. 

Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal