India's biggest airline, IndiGo, said on Sunday it had diverted a plane to Karachi in neighbouring Pakistan due to a "technical defect", the second such incident for an Indian carrier involving an unscheduled landing in less than two weeks.
An Indigo Airbus A320-200N, registration VT-IJK performing flight 6E-1406 (dep Jul 16th) from Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) to Hyderabad (India) with 187 passengers and 6 crew, was enroute at FL370 over the Arabian Sea about 230nm southwest of Karachi (Pakistan) when the crew decided to divert to Karachi due to abnormal indications for the right hand engine (PW1127G). The aircraft landed safely on Karachi's runway 07R about 30 minutes later.
"IndiGo flight 6E-1406, operating from Sharjah to Hyderabad was diverted to Karachi. The pilot observed a technical defect," IndiGo said in a statement to the media.
IndiGo was dispatching replacement Airbus A320-200N registration VT-IZO positioned to Karachi, however, did not resume the flight and returned to Ahmedabad as flight number 6E-9002.
The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Karachi for about 14 hours, then continued the flight and reached Hyderabad with a delay of about 15.5 hours.
SpiceJet said on July 5 a Boeing 737 aircraft from New Delhi to Dubai made an emergency landing in Karachi due to a fuel indicator light malfunctioning, prompting the airlines watchdog to issue a warning notice. read more
India has seen a strong revival in domestic and international air travel in the months following lifting of COVID restrictions.