File picture of an Air India A-320 aircraft
The 21-year-old Airbus A-320 that needed an
emergency landing in Delhi on Monday night was described as being among a batch of jets that pilots months ago had described as "lethal snag prone aircraft" of Air India. NDTV has accessed a letter sent in March by the Indian Commercial Pilots Association about the dangers of using the A-320.
Yesterday, 150 passengers were on board an Air India flight that landed with passengers being evacuated via emergency chutes or slides because of a hydraulic problem that impacted how the plane, now two decades old, would brake on the runway.
Air India officials denied there was a major fire in a wheel bay as reported by airport officials; the airline suggested that leaking hydraulic fluid may have ignited as a result of sparks caused when the aircraft braked heavily upon landing. Some of the passengers reported minor injuries.
Author
William Dalrymple told NDTV that passengers were told the Khajuraho-Varanasi-Delhi flight had been cancelled, but this was followed by a last-minute announcement that technical problems had been resolved and the plane would take off after all.
"The minute we touched down they said May Day, May Day, evacuate passengers...they were aware there was a major fault," Mr Dalrymple said.
The government denied that the plane was allowed to take off despite an unresolved technical fault.
"There is no question of flying a faulty plane. The pilot got to know of the problem just before landing," said Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Aviation. He also said that it's incorrect to present the veteran A-320s as dangerous. "The age of the aircraft, whether three years old or 26 years old, doesn't matter...every aircraft flies only after an airworthiness certificate is issued to it," the minister said.