SpiceJet’s 138 stranded passengers leave Karachi for Dubai by alternate flight
New Delhi:
After being stranded in Karachi for nearly 11 hours, 138 passengers of Delhi-Dubai SpiceJet finally took an alternate flight to the UAE, which was deboarded from India on Tuesday evening.
SpiceJet’s Boeing 737 MAX aircraft made an unscheduled landing at Karachi airport this morning following a failure in the fuel indicator. The plane’s pilots had indicators of a possible fuel leak from a tank in one of the jet’s wings.
According to aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, “the crew noticed an unusual decrease in fuel quantity”. In other words, the fuel display in the cockpit indicates an unexpected loss of fuel from the aircraft. This required the pilot to make a landing in Karachi, although it was a precautionary landing, not an emergency.
“On July 5, 2022, SpiceJet B737 aircraft operations flight SG-11 (Delhi – Dubai) was diverted to Karachi due to an indicator light failure. The aircraft landed safely in Karachi and landed passengers safely. Gaya. No emergency was declared and the aircraft made a normal landing. There were no earlier reports of any malfunction in the aircraft. Refreshments have been served to the passengers,” the airline spokesperson had said.
SpiceJet sent an alternate flight SG 9911 from Mumbai to take the passengers to Dubai, which took off around 9:20 pm, news agency PTI reported.
“Apparently there was a problem with the light indicator of the aircraft and it could not be fixed immediately and it did not get approval from the engineers, so another plane was sent from Mumbai,” an official said.
The fuel light failure was the first of the two incidents related to the SpiceJet incident on Tuesday. Later in the day, a SpiceJet plane flying from Kandla in Gujarat to Mumbai made a priority landing in the Maharashtra capital. The side windshield developed a crack in mid-air,
The airline said in a statement that all passengers and crew members are safe.
Aviation sources have told NDTV that this is the seventh security concern at SpiceJet in less than three weeks.
Aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) conducted a comprehensive safety audit of SpiceJet aircraft only last month and continues to conduct inspections on a case-by-case basis.