BENGALURU: Altogether 165 passengers aboard an AirAsia India flight which had reached Bengaluru from New Delhi survived a major scare on Tuesday, when their aircraft moved nearly 100 feet in the reverse direction, after it had safely landed and parked.
The incident did not happen in a main parking bay, but at a remote bay where the aircraft was parked and was to depart on its return leg shortly. Flight No. I5 740 had taken off from Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 8 am and landed at Kempegowda International Airport at 10.36 am, four minutes before schedule. It was the lack of coordination between aircraft engineers on the ground and the Flight Captain that led to the situation, said a source.
Narrating the sequence of events, the source said the flight had landed safely and proceeded to the remote parking bay (which is not located near the aerobridge or the terminal) and not in the regular parking bays where aircraft are stationed when not operating. This was because the flight was to return to Delhi immediately (I5 741, 11.20 am)
Explaining the normal sequence that is followed after landing, he said, “Whenever the landing of the flight is completed, the pilot puts the brakes on and then cuts off the engine. Engineers on the ground place chocks (wedge-shaped rubber or wooden blocks) in front and behind all the wheels to prevent the aircraft from rolling. The engineer then signals that the chocks are in place and the pilot releases the brakes.
In the incident on Tuesday, the pilot had released the brakes probably assuming the chocks were already in place and this made the aircraft slide behind by 100 feet.” Remedial action was taken by the pilot and the flight halted. “If any other aircraft had been taxiing behind it at that time, there would have been a collision endangering the passengers,” he said, adding that such an incident is a rare occurrence.
A spokesperson of the airline said they are investigating the incident in detail. In a statement, he said, “While parking at the Bengaluru airport on March 22, an AirAsia India Airbus A320 aircraft rolled back. The pilot applied the brakes gently as per established procedures and stopped the aircraft. It was then towed and repositioned.”
Due to the incident, there was a delay in disembarkation of passengers, which had a cascading effect on the flight’s return trip to Delhi that got delayed by 18 minutes. It left at 11.38 am.