THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Dubai-bound Air India Express flight had an emergency landing at the international airport here on Tuesday evening after a technical snag was detected minutes after the take off.
The airport officials said that Air India Express flight IX 539 landed following a failure in the electronics system of the plane.
It is learnt that there were 170 passengers on board and none was injured in the incident. The departure time of the flight was 4.30 pm and a technical snag was first detected when the aircraft was taxying. Error rectification works were carried out without evacuating the passengers and the flight finally took off at 7.20 pm. However, the snag persisted and the pilot requested the ATC to facilitate an emergency landing soon after take off.
The plane flew around for three hours before landing at 10.28 pm to burn off excess fuel and maintain the landing weight of the aircraft. Emergency services were at standby when the plane landed. Air India officials said the passengers would be flown to their destination on Wednesday.
The emergency landing is the third incident this month where AI flights developed technical problems.
On August 16, two tyres of an Air India Airbus 320 burst on landing at the international airport here creating scare among the passengers. On August 3, an Air India Boeing 747 from Jeddah had a tyre burst at Karipur airport in Kozhikode.