NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated a probe into the incident involving an IndiGo flight which made an emergency landing at the Kolkata airport on Wednesday after the aircraft developed technical snag while in air.
The IndiGo’s Delhi- Dibrugarh (Assam) flight maintained its pilot did not seek emergency landing. But airport sources said onboard the plane was diverted to Kolkata while it developed snag in one of its engines while it was in air.
The flight, carrying 180 passengers including two infants onboard. DGCA confirmed on launching an investigation into the incident.
However IndiGo has maintained that the aircraft had confronted a technical issue but it was not a serious one and its pilot had not requested for emergency landing. The airline claimed that its pilot only sought diversion of the flight and asked for emergency landing at Kolkata airport as the situation did not require it at all.
According IndiGo’s press statement, “IndiGo's Captain-in-Command operating Delhi-Dibrugarh flight 6E-3645, decided to divert aircraft to Kolkata due a technical snag as a precautionary measure. Despite that cockpit crew did not declare any emergency, ATC (Air Traffic Control) declared full emergency on its own. The aircraft landed safely.”
However a senior airline pilot said the IndiGo flight would have taken a diversion of around 250 kilometres from its route path to reach Kolkata airport, which in any case is not something routine and such a decision is taken only when the pilot detects something unusual or when he senses some trouble.
The IndiGo’s incident comes a month after a row had erupted over the Indigo Patna-Kolkata flight carrying West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee on December 1 last year, where the Trinamool Congress alleged that the aircraft was not accorded priority in landing despite reporting low fuel.