Two Air-India aircraft made emergency landings at New Delhi airport on Monday because of problems with their landing gear.
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Two Air-India aircraft made emergency landings at New Delhi airport on Monday because of problems with their landing gear, causing several hours of delay and closing one of the two runways.
All passengers were safe. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Air-India ordered parallel investigations into the incidents.
In the first incident, the pilot of a flight from Shanghai carrying 191 passengers reported problems in the plane’s undercarriage. The aircraft hovered over the airport for more than an hour before landing at 7:45am.
After the passengers disembarked on the main runway using step-ladders, the Airbus’s nose-wheel collapsed and got stuck in the soft turf as it was being towed to an isolated bay for repairs. As a result, the main runway was blocked for many hours.
While Air-India officials were trying to find out what had gone wrong, another aircraft, coming in from Dubai with 54 passengers, reported a hydraulic problem. It made an emergency landing at 3:15pm.
An airline spokesman said the pilot decided to land as a precautionary measure because of a technical defect.
The instrumentation system in the cockpit did not show up the lowering of the landing gear even though it was being lowered.
While the secondary runway was used since morning for takeoffs and landings, a major part of the main runway was opened to traffic in the afternoon even as operations to raise the nose of the bogged Airbus continued.
Kapil Kaul, CEO of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation, said: “The incident has dented Air-India's image, especially when it is acquiring a new fleet. All aircraft in its fleet are 12-16 years old. Older machines are prone to technical snags and often require unscheduled checks.”
With inputs from Agencies
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