Air India diverts flight to pick up stranded passengers in Toronto

India on Monday diverted its New York-Delhi flight to Toronto to bring home over 250 passengers of Chicago-Delhi flight who were stranded in the Canadian city after a suspected oil leakage in its engine led the Boeing 777 to make an emergency landing there.

The Boeing 777-300 ER (Extended Range), operating flight AI-102 from New York's JFK Airport to Delhi, was flown to Toronto's Pearson Airport to pick up the passengers, airline sources said here. They said the flight would land here around 2100 hours today, instead of its scheduled time of 1430 hours.

Engineers of Air India and Boeing inspected the aircraft, also a Boeing 777-300 ER that was operating the Chicago-Delhi flight AI-126 yesterday, they said, adding that repairs were being undertaken in the aircraft.

The pilot suspected oil leakage in the port engine of the twin-engined aircraft and decided to divert to Toronto, where it landed under emergency conditions after jettisoning its fuel onboard as per safety practice, the officials said. The flight was to have travelled further to Hyderabad from Delhi.

The stranded passengers were provided accommodation in Toronto, they added.