Close shave for 52 after flight makes emergency landing in city

The TruJet flight to Mysuru departed from Belgaum airport on Monday night. However, after the pilots detected a snag in its landing gear, the aircraft was diverted to Chennai where the airport has a longer operational runway than the one at Mysuru.

After asking the crew to stay in the airspace, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials made arrangements for an emergency landing. Around 9 pm, after the permission was granted, the flight landed in the main runway safely, except for a burst tyre. After all the passengers were evacuated from the flight, the main runway was closed for a while.

“Around 8.50 pm on Monday, an emergency was declared and the aircraft landed at Chennai Airport at 9.08 pm with damaged tyre and stopped on the main runway. The aircraft cannot be towed with passengers on board. So the passengers were safely offloaded on the runway itself. Following that, the aircraft was towed to the parking bay,” airport sources said.

The passengers who were stranded in the city were finally sent to Bengaluru on a spare flight on Tuesday morning, said sources. As the drama played out on the ground, nine passenger flights that were supposed to land in Chennai were asked to wait in the airspace for a while. Later, the flights were asked to land in the secondary runway. A cargo flight was diverted to Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered an inquiry into the incident.