As many as 22 flights were diverted at the Delhi airport on Saturday evening due to bad weather.
Passengers aboard a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight from Ayodhya reportedly experienced a "harrowing" incident when the aircraft attempted landing twice at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport but couldn’t succeed due to bad weather. The incident took place on April 13 on flight 6E2702.
Delhi Police Deputy Commissioner (Crime) Satish Kumar, who was one of the passengers, shared details of the incident on social media.
He said the pilot informed passengers of adverse weather conditions upon nearing the destination around 4:15 pm and assured them that the aircraft had 45 minutes of holding fuel, a standard safety measure pilots follow in such situations.
"The pilot attempted landing twice, couldn’t due to bad weather, and still wasted a lot of time deciding the next course of action," Kumar said in his post on X.
At 5:30 pm, after 75 minutes from the holding fuel announcement, the pilot diverted the flight to Chandigarh for landing. “By that time a lot of passengers and one of the crew staff started puking out of panic,” said Kumar, adding that the plane finally landed in Chandigarh at 6.10 pm, 115 minutes after the holding fuel announcement.
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“Got to know after landing that we’ve landed in the nick of time with only 1 or 2 minutes of fuel left from the crew staff. What an ordeal it was for the passengers,” wrote Kumar in his post.
He also tagged the X handles of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation, urging them to look into whether all standard operating procedures (SOPs) were followed.
IndiGo is yet to issue a statement on the alleged incident.
As many as 22 flights were diverted at the Delhi airport on Saturday evening due to bad weather, news agency PTI quoted an official as saying.
Of them, nine flights were diverted to Jaipur, eight to Lucknow, two to Chandigarh, and one each to Varanasi, Amritsar and Ahmedabad.