What should have been a three-hour journey for the crew and passengers on an Air India Express flight stretched to nearly 12 hours following weather events over Telangana. IX918 on the Muscat-Hyderabad sector, with 167 passengers, including an infant, and six crew, took off just after 1 p.m. on Monday.
When descending on the approach to Hyderabad at around 4.10 p.m., bad weather set in. The crew initiated a go-around, and the Boeing 737-800NG was diverted to Chennai, landing at Meenambakkam at around 5.20 p.m.
The aircraft took off for Hyderabad again at around 6 p.m. but nearly 30 minutes into the flight, the crew were informed of extremely bad weather over Hyderabad and also runway closure. The flight returned to Chennai, landing at 7.50 p.m.
As the crew had exhausted their mandated flight duty time limitation by then, the airline arranged for a crew change which was done within two hours. After air services resumed, the flight left at around 11.30 p.m., landing at Shamshabad at 12.20 a.m.
