An Airbus 320neo aircraft operating for IndiGo airlines as 6E 5384 had to make an emergency landing and return to Mumbai in the wee hours of Thursday. The Hyderabad-bound flight that was scheduled to depart from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International (CSMI) airport at 12.50 am on Thursday, actually took off at 1.03 am. It however, had to return to CSMIA a little after it crossed Pune.
According to Mumbai airport sources, full emergency was declared until the Neo aircraft could land safely at main runway 27. During full emergency, fire tenders along with ambulances are kept ready, in case of an incident/ accident.
A senior Mumbai airport official said, “At around 1.17 am, the pilot declared PAN-PAN (international standard urgency signal) and requested the Mumbai Air Traffic Control (ATC) to return to Mumbai as it’s engine 1 had stalled”.
An Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said that at 1.15 am, 60 nautical miles away from Mumbai, the aircraft (VT- IJD) stopped and requested Mumbai ATC to maintain that flight level for sometime. “It was after this that the pilot decided to return to its origin airport by declaring PAN-PAN ,” said the official.
PAN PAN call is a milder version of a MAYDAY call, which is used to draw undivided attention of ATC officers to attend that flight on priority.
The aircraft however landed safely at 1.41 am.
