Plane makes emergency landing at IGI airport as wheel collapses

New Delhi

Two flights made emergency landings at the Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on Monday. No passengers or crew members were inured in the incidents.

Alliance Air flight 9X643, with 63 passengers on board heading to Jaipur from Delhi, suffered a glitch in its landing gear soon after take-off at 8.13pm.

Smoke was detected from the learning gear and, at 8:20pm, the airport control room was informed about the aircraft returning to IGIA.

“Full Emergency was declared for the flight. The flight with 63 passengers on board landed safely at 8:35 pm,” said an airport source.

Eyewitnesses said that the passengers had to jump from the aircraft, an ATR 72, as the nose landing gear had collapsed soon after the aircraft took off from Delhi.

“The flight was already delayed by 40-45 minutes and the moment it took off, there was a loud sound and you could feel something was wrong. Soon, pilot announced we were returning to Delhi. All emergency exits were used and since it was a small aircraft, passengers even jumped onto the tarmac. When we came out, fire tenders were already there,” said a passenger on the flight.

Alliance Air is a subsidiary of Air India.

“Due to problem in nose landing gear and some technical failure, the Delhi-Jaipur Alliance Air flight (9X 643) made an emergency landing at Delhi airport. All passengers are safe and shifted to another aircraft,” said Dhananjay kumar, spokesperson, Air India.

Earlier in the day, full emergency was declared for the Air India flight AI-5018, arriving from Jeddah, due to hydraulic failure. There were 420 passengers on board and all of them were safe, the airlines said.

First Published: Aug 19, 2019 23:16 IST