New Delhi: Over 100 people on board an
Air India plane had a close shave when two tyres of the left
landing gear of the aircraft deflated soon after it landed at
the IGI airport here Tuesday.
"Air India's Mumbai-Bhopal-Indore-Delhi flight
(IC-133) with 100 passengers and six crew members landed at
Delhi airport around 10.58 am and was taxiing towards the
parking bay when engineers at the ground noticed two deflated
tyres of the left landing gear and sparks emanating due to
friction," an airline official said.
They then immediately informed the pilot and asked him
to stop the Airbus-320 aircraft.
The crash fire tenders were immediately called in,
which sprinkled water and foam to cool the aircraft's
undercarriage in order to prevent any fire, he said, adding
"all the passengers onboard are safe".
According to sources, there was no tyre burst as the
pilot did not notice any unusual jerk. "The tyres got deflated
after the aircraft had landed and while it was taxiing," they
said.
The Civil Aviation Ministry also clarified that the tyres had only decapped.
Today's incident at the IGI airport is in the series
of close shaves involving passenger aircraft.
Meanwhile the Ministry has said that there was no breach of safety in today’s accident. It also informed reporters that the DGCA would probe the incident.
Earlier this month, an Air India Express Dubai-Pune
flight, with 112 passengers on board, rapidly descended
several thousand feet over Muscat air space.
Reports had alleged that the commander was not in the
cockpit and the co-pilot could not control the aircraft as it
started the descent.
About a week later, a mid-air collision was averted by
pilots as a Jet Airways and an Air India plane came
'dangerously close' on the same flight path over Tamil Nadu.
Air India flight IC 671 and Jet Airways flight 9W
4758, carrying nearly 250 passengers and crew, came close to
colliding with each other at a height of 17,000 feet near
Trichchirapalli air space, triggering an Air Traffic Collision
Avoidance siren in both the planes.
The Air India flight was bound from Chennai to Madurai
and the Jet flight was headed to Chennai from
Thiruvananthapuram.
On June 3, a possible disaster was averted at Mumbai's
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport when a flight was
cleared for landing while another plane was waiting for
take-off on the same runway.
A Chennai-bound Spicejet flight with 201 passengers
was cleared for take-off shortly after 1.30 a.m. but the
flight commander detected some technical problem and
informed the air traffic control.
At the same time, the ATC had already cleared for
landing a Kingfisher Airlines flight arriving from New Delhi.
The Kingfisher flight too had some 200 passengers on board.
On May 22, an Air India Express aircraft had overshot
the runway at Mangalore airport and fell into a ravine killing
158 passengers.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 14:07