Pilots Warned Against 'Lethal' Air India Aircraft. It Stays In Use

New Delhi:  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, 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 were left with 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.

 

“It was faulty when they took off,” said the British author, who spends vast amounts of time in Delhi.   

 

On the flight, he said, was an Air India engineer flying with his son who “said he was incredibly nervous…as he did not believe they had sorted the problem. He was doing a mantra (prayers).”

 

“The minute we touched down they said May Day, May Day, evacuate passengers…they were aware there was a major fault,” Mr Dalrymple said.  

 

Junior minister for aviation Mahesh Sharma had said last night, “The pilot came to know about a leak in the hydraulic system while in the air itself and when the plane was landing.”