Chennai: Pilots declare emergency mid-air, return to airport

CHENNAI: A Chennai-Kuwait Indigo airlines flight carrying 154 passengers made an emergency landing at the Chennai International Airport on Friday morning, less than an hour after its departure from the same airport.

The incident took place soon after the flight took off from Chennai as per its scheduled departure time of 1:40 am on Friday, but returned as the smoke alarm from the flight’s cargo area went off.

According to airport sources, the  IndiGo 1751 flight with 154 passengers and five cabin crew boarded at the Chennai international Airport on the wee hours of Friday.

Within a few minutes, the pilot noticed the smoke alarm in the cargo area and immediately checked for grounding at Chennai International Airport.

The Chennai Air Traffic control was alerted and a full emergency was declared at the airport with all safety precautions in place. The aircraft then safely landed by 2:20 am at the Chennai International Airport. Fire engines followed the aircraft as soon as it landed. The passengers were offloaded and officials inspected the flight. Passengers were transferred to a different aircraft that took off for Kuwait by 4.25 am.

The incident has been reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s regulatory body. DGCA has ordered a probe into the incident.

It may recalled that on September 21, a Chennai -Qatar Indigo flight  carrying 121 passengers made an emergency landing after the pilot received a warning from the automated smoke detector in the plane’s cargo area. In May, a Singapore-bound flight of Scoot Airways made an emergency landing in Chennai airport after the pilot detected smoke in the aircraft. The flight, originating from Tiruchy, with 161 passengers and crew on-board, landed at Chennai airport in the wee hours of the day, after smoke emanated from the aircraft’s cargo hold.