The Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mahesh Sharma has said that there was no question of taking any chance with the lives of passengers or aircraft crew.
The Centre has denied allegations that the state-run carrier, Air India was operating old and faulty aircrafts, and yesterday's incident of fire in a plane was not due to any safety issue. More than 150 people were onboard the flight.
"Practically, this was not a safety failure. This (the incident) was not practically fire but a hydraulic system leak after landing. The rim of the plane got heated up due to the oil leak and some fuel," said minister of state for civil aviation, Mahesh Sharma.
The minister also said that there was no question of taking any chance with the lives of passengers or aircraft crew. Mr Sharma told reporters, "We follow all the safety guidelines from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)."
Yesterday, the Air India flight from Varanasi had a close shave when one of the wheels of the 21-year-old Airbus 320 aircraft caught fire due to friction after it landed under emergency conditions at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here due to a hydraulic failure.
Earlier, one of Air India's pilots body, Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), had in March urged the DGCA to ground national carrier's aged Airbus 320 fleet.
"The classic A-320 aircraft, which are 26 years old, are being operated with repetitive snags endangering flight safety. The DGCA should not permit Air India to operate these lethal snag-prone classic aircraft in lieu of passenger safety," the ICPA had said in a letter.
Mr Sharma has claimed that none of the aircrafts by any carrier are allowed to operate unless they obtains airworthiness certificate. He said, "Whenever we get a smallest iota of doubt (about safety of the plane) we recheck the plane. The aircraft is allowed to fly only when it is given airworthiness certificate."