A senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said a Delhi-bound SpiceJet flight has started fire after it took off from Patna and two other air incidents involving IndiGo and SpiceJet flights. On Sunday, a Delhi-bound SpiceJet Airlines plane carrying 185 passengers caught fire soon after taking off from Patna airport and made an emergency landing minutes later.
“The aircraft landed safely in Patna and the passengers disembarked safely. On post-flight inspection, the bird suffered injury, with three fans damaged,” the airline said in a statement. In another incident on Sunday, a SpiceJet flight bound for Jabalpur had to return to Delhi due to “pressure”, a DGCA official said.
“The SpiceJet Bombardier Q400 The aircraft with registration number VT-SUU, operating its flight SG-2962 (Delhi-Jabalpur), was involved in an air turnback due to pressure,” he said.
Read also: Delhi-bound Indigo flight hit by bird after takeoff, returns to Guwahati
He noted that during the initial climb, the crew noticed that the cabin pressure difference was not increasing as the cabin altitude increased. “The aircraft was leveled at 6,000 feet, and non-normal checklist action was taken, but pressure was not withdrawn, and air turn back was initiated,” he said.
The official said that the plane landed safely in Delhi.
SpiceJet in a statement confirmed the return of its Delhi-Jabalpur flight to safe air due to “cabin pressure differential”.
In another incident on Sunday, VT-ITB, pilot-in-command of an Airbus A320neo aircraft operated by IndiGo, which was operating flight 6E-6394 from Guwahati to Delhi, took off on a single-engined flight after taking off. decided to take him back to Guwahati. The official said the plane collided with a bird, resulting in damage to one of the engines when the plane was at an altitude of 1600 feet.
“The aircraft could not climb to 6,000 ft. After evacuation, 2,000 ft was maintained and (flight crew) took ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor) action. Engine 01 was shut down per ECAM,” he said.
He said the plane, however, landed safely on runway 20 of the Guwahati airport. ECAM is a system on Airbus aircraft for monitoring and displaying engine and aircraft system information to pilots. In the event of a fault, it will display the fault and may also show the appropriate steps for remedial actions.
The official also said that the flight crew initially announced a ‘Mayday’ call on an IndiGo airline flight, which was later canceled and converted to a ‘PAN PAN’ call.” from Guwahati to IndiGo Airbus A320neo (VT) -ITB) operating flight 6E 6394, IndiGo said in a statement, “After taking off from Delhi, returned to Guwahati airport after being hit by a suspicious bird. All the passengers were accommodated in another flight bound for Delhi.” A DGCA official said that an inquiry has been started into all the three incidents.
With inputs from PTI