Air India’s trouble with its fleet of nearly 25-year-old Airbus A320 aircraft does not seem to end.
Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport witnessed tense moments on Thursday evening when Air India’s Varanasi to Delhi flight (AI 433) with 133 passengers on board had to make an emergency landing reportedly due to a snag in one engine.
On September 7, another Airbus A320 aircraft on the same Varanasi-Delhi sector (AI 405) had to make an emergency landing at Delhi airport following a hydraulic leak. The passengers of the aircraft had to be evacuated through emergency chutes after smoke was detected in the rear tyres and a few passengers got injured in the process.
On Thursday, the pilot of the flight (Registration number VTEPJ) detected a warning for engine failure and informed the Air Traffic Control (ATC), requesting a priority landing. The Delhi ATC declared full emergency at 7.50 pm and all precautionary measures were taken at the airport. Fire tenders, medical aid and security personnel were deployed near the tarmac as precaution.
The flight landed safely at 8.10 pm on the runway 29 of the airport and none of the passengers or cabin crew were injured in the incident.
The engineering department of the national carrier is investigating the incident. “The pilot asked for a priority landing because there was an indication in the cockpit about problem in the engine. No snag was however detected after the aircraft landed but we are looking in to what caused the cockpit alarm to be set off,” said an Air India official who didn’t wish to be named.
“It is definitely not a case of a bird hit because the flight landed after 8 pm. The aircraft was found airworthy and is back to flying,” he said.
A section of Air India pilots had written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in March this year, requesting the aviation regulator to stop the national carrier from flying these snag-prone aircraft, keeping in mind the safety of passengers.
