THE Swami Vivekananda Airport (SVA) saw a dramatic operation on Friday evening when a Bhubaneshwar-Mumbai Air India flight with 189 people on board made an emergency landing after a fire alarm in its left engine. Personnel at Raipur took control of the situation and later found out no danger to the aircraft. All the 180 passengers and nine crew members would resume their onward journey after midnight in a relief plane.

 

Till the fire fighter teams of Airport Authority of India (AAI) made a swift and in-depth examination of the aircraft, tension and anxiety had enveloped SVA. The entire rank and file heaved a great sigh of relief and thanked almighty when an all-clear message flashed on the walkie-talkie of Raipur Airport Director Rakesh Ranjan Sahay at 17.58 hours.

 

“The aircraft – an Airbus-321 –passing-by at an altitude of over 30,000 to 35,000 feet of Chhattisgarh airspace was en-route to Mumbai, when Raipur’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower at 17.47 hours received a distress call from Duty Officer of Kolkata ATC that the flight desperately needed the runway for emergency landing since the pilot noticed alarm sensors indicating fire in its left engine. Immediately, the whole machinery of SVA switched-over to emergency mode to deal with the situation as per Standard Operating Procedures (SOP),” Sahay told ‘The Hitavada’.

According to Sahay, all three teams were positioned near runway-24 of SVA, which was cleared for emergency landing.

 

An ambulance along with a doctor and nurse were also kept nearby to deal with any medical contingency. Local police station and Aerodrome Security Committee (ASC) were given intimation about the situation through a hotline call whereas all the hospitals in vicinity of airport and also local municipal fire tenders were asked to remain on standby. “All this readiness and preparedness was ensured within 10 minutes,” Sahay said adding, some technical snag in the engine may have triggered the fire sensor alarms which will need inspection by the engineers.

 

The AI-670 flight made emergency landing on the designated runway at around 1757 hours and it took merely 10 seconds for CFT-1 team to confirm that there was no fire in any of the engines. Five ‘chute-gates’ under emergency procedures were opened to deplane all the 180 passengers and the crew members. They were immediately shifted to the terminal building with the help of three shuttle buses. Of the three buses, two were facilitated by IndiGo while another belonged to Air India. The APD confirmed that another Delhi-Raipur Air-India flight (AI-483) was asked to hold in the air since the entire Raipur Airport team was dealing with the emergency. “The flight, whose schedule landing was 1839 hours, after being initially asked to hold in the air was finally diverted to Nagpur,” he added.

 

Subsequently, the AI flight was shifted to Parking Stand-7 at around 8.30 pm, where engineers from Air India were expected to reach later for its close inspection. Air India arranged for a relief flight for the stranded passengers which would land here past midnight at around 1 am and will take back to the skies at 1.30 am.

 

“The whole team once again proved that Raipur Airport was ever-ready to face and deal with whatever situation may come,” said APD Sahay. However, the normalcy of fight operations resumed from 8 pm onwards.