Two flights make emergency landing at Lucknow airport

It was a busy day for the staff of Airport Authority of India (AAI) as two flights, with more than 200 passengers on board, made an emergency landing at the Chaudhary Charan Singh (CCS) airport in Lucknow on Thursday.

A Delhi-bound Air India flight from Durgapur (West Bengal) with 108 passengers and crew members on board made an emergency landing at 6.59 am following a technical snag, an airport official said.

Later, at 6.17 pm, another flight G8150 (GOAir Patna-Delhi) made an emergency landing due to engine failure at 6.17 pm. This aircraft had 137 passengers on board, including crew members, said officials.

“One of the two engines of Air India Airbus 319 got stalled due to technical reasons, forcing the pilot to call for emergency landing,” said the official of Lucknow airport.

“Engineers have been called from Delhi to examine the aircraft and an inquiry ordered by the Director General, Civil Aviation,” the official added.

According to the official, alert for a full emergency landing was sounded at 6.49 am when the pilot of flight number AI 755 sent a SOS message to Air Traffic Control (ATC) seeking permission for immediate landing.

“He said the engine was not working and if permission of landing was not granted immediately, it could lead to serious trouble. The AAI and ATC immediately swung into action and called in fire tenders and ambulances besides alerting the police and doctors,” the official added.

OSD Lucknow airport Sanjay Narain said, “A five-cordon security for the plane was arranged within five minutes.”

The aircraft was parked at Lucknow airport bay and passengers were asked to wait for the next aircraft. A-I arranged a special flight for passengers and they left for Delhi at 6pm.

The Airbus 319 is considered to be one of the safest aircraft when it comes to middle distance travel. It’s a twin engine aircraft with the capacity to carry around 160 passengers in the range of 6900 kilometers at a time.

Meanwhile, the GOAir flight was parked at the bay of the airport and all the passengers were taken out safely. GOAir authorities were trying to a arrange flight for the stranded passengers. Aviation experts said that the failure of engines of two aircraft in a day shows lack of maintenance due to busy schedule or ageing fleet of airlines.

First Published: Mar 08, 2019 00:48 IST