A Hyderabad-bound IndiGo flight 6E-1406 from Sharjah was on Sunday reportedly diverted to Karachi airport after the aircraft developed a technical defect mid-air. “IndiGo flight 6E-1406, operating from Sharjah to Hyderabad, was diverted to Karachi. The pilot observed a technical defect. Necessary procedures were followed and as a precaution, the aircraft was diverted to Karachi,” IndiGo said in a press release here on Sunday.
The company further added that an additional flight will be sent to Karachi to fly the passengers to Hyderabad. “The plane landed in Karachi 0803 a.m. (local time), 53 minutes after being airborne. It has been on-ground for the past four hours. Passengers are being looked after. The plane has been parked in the designated area where engineers are assessing the problem,” Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials said.
A day earlier on Saturday, an Air India Express aircraft, operating from Calicut to Dubai, was diverted to Muscat after a burning smell was observed from one of the vents in the forward galley of the aircraft.
A senior DGCA official confirmed that the Air India Express B737-800 aircraft VT-AXX operating flight IX-355 (Calicut-Dubai) was diverted to Muscat as, during cruise, a burning smell came from one of the vents in the forward galley.” The crew carried out a non-normal checklist for smoke fire or fumes and diverted to Muscat and landed safely.
Meanwhile, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Sunday chaired a high-level meeting with senior officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) over air safety after three emergency landings in the last 48 hours.
The meeting came in the wake of three aircraft of international airlines making emergency landings at various airports in the last 48 hours, making it a day of technical emergencies for various airlines. A senior DGCA official informed that these landings were made in Calicut, Chennai, and Kolkata on Friday and Saturday.
All emergency landings happened because of various technical issues.
The Air Arabia aircraft while operating flight G9-426 from Sharjah to Cochin was involved in a Hydraulic failure. The aircraft landed safely on the runway. In another incident, on 16 July, an aircraft of Ethiopian Airlines from Addis Ababa to Bangkok made an emergency landing at Kolkata Airport due to a pressurisation issue.
In a third similar incident, on 15 July, an aircraft of Sri Lankan Airlines made an emergency landing at Chennai airport due to a Hydraulic issue.
Apart from these in-country emergency landings, at least three international flights made off-shore emergency landings after they were diverted due to mid-air technical snags. Before the IndiGo and Air India Express aircraft developing mid-air technical glitches and diverted to make emergency landings as noted earlier, a SpiceJet flight had a similar experience.
On 5 July, a Dubai-bound SpiceJet flight from New Delhi made a precautionary landing at Karachi airport after the plane developed a technical glitch. SpiceJet said in a statement, “On July 5, 2022, SpiceJet B737 aircraft operating flight SG-11 (Delhi-Dubai) was diverted to Karachi due to an indicator light malfunctioning. The aircraft landed safely at Karachi and passengers were safely disembarked.” According to the Karachi airport officials, the flight was diverted when it was on its way to Dubai.