NEW DELHI: Defence minister
Nirmala Sitharaman had to cancel a scheduled visit to
Nagaland and the India-Myanmar border on Sunday after the Embraer-135BJ Legacy jet of the
IAF, in which she was travelling, developed a technical snag around an hour into flight.
The IAF pilot of the
Embraer jet, which had taken off from the Palam airport at about 7.40 am, took the decision to return to New Delhi after “some warning signals” went off in the cockpit. “Though the snag was not major, the pilot is the best judge about whether to continue with the flight. The jet landed back at Palam around an hour after the take-off,” said an official.
India had inked the Rs 727-crore deal for five Embraer 135BJ Legacy jets for VVIP travel in September 2003. While four were inducted into Palam-based Air HQ Communication Squadron of the IAF, the fifth went to the
BSF under the home ministry.