Latest news with #SaurabhSinha
Time of India
23-05-2025
- Climate
- Time of India
IAF helped IndiGo plane land safely in J&K after Pakistan snub
NEW DELHI: When IndiGo's Delhi-Srinagar flight of May 21 flew into severe turbulence and a hailstorm near Pathankot, they first tried to steer clear of the bad weather but were not allowed to do so by Lahore ATC. They then considered returning to Delhi before deciding to continue to Srinagar, safely manoeuvring through challenging operating circumstances before safely landing the plane with 220 people, reports Saurabh Sinha. "Once Lahore refused overflight clearance, and the aircraft proceeded towards Srinagar, the flight was subsequently professionally assisted," IAF sources said. IndiGo pilots flew aircraft manually till they came out of hailstorm The flight was subsequently professionally assisted till a safe-landing at Srinagar airfield by giving control vectors and groundspeed readouts," IAF sources said. During this time, the pilots of IndiGo flight (6E-2142) got multiple warnings - like maximum operating speed and angle of attack fault - for the Airbus A321neo (VT-IMD). They flew the aircraft manually (without autopilot) till they exited the hailstorm and declared an urgency situation. The aircraft touched down at Srinagar with everyone safe. But the plane's nosecone (radome) was damaged while flying through the hailstorm. DGCA, which is probing the incident, said in a statement Friday that the aircraft flew into the hailstorm while cruising at 36,000 feet: "As per crew statement, they requested IAF Northern Control for deviating left towards the international border due to weather on the route. However, it was not approved. Later, crew contacted Lahore (air traffic control) to enter their airspace to avoid the weather but the same was also refused. Crew initially attempted to return (to Delhi) but as they were close to the thunderstorm cloud, they decided to penetrate the weather." "Crew chose to continue at the same heading to exit the weather by shortest route towards Srinagar. While in thunderstorm cloud, warnings of angle of attack fault, alternate law protection lost and backup speed scale unreliable were triggered. Due to updraft & downdraft... autopilot tripped and aircraft speed had wide variations. As a result, maximum operating speed/maximum operating Mach warnings and repeated stall warnings were triggered," DGCA said. During this period, DGCA statement says, the plane's rate of descent reached 8,500 feet per minute. "Crew flew the aircraft manually till they exited the hailstorm. After carrying out all checklist actions, crew declared PAN PAN (urgency call) to Srinagar ATC, requested radar vectors, and made a safe landing with auto thrust operating normally," it added. IAF sources said: "The NOTAM issued by Pakistani civil aviation authorities was in vogue (barring Indian aircraft from Pakistani airspace)..."
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Time of India
11k fly out of Srinagar on Wednesday, 2k more than a normal day
NEW DELHI: About 11,000 people - mostly peak summer season holidayers - are expected to have flown out of Srinagar on Wednesday, a day after the Pahalgam attack . Airport sources say Srinagar on an average sees 52 aircraft arrivals and as many departures daily with 10,000-12,000 passengers (about half of them arrivals and half departures) in non-peak and 16,000-18,000 in the current peak season, reports Saurabh Sinha. Srinagar Airport , which handles flights from 6 am to 10 pm, on Wednesday saw 9,251 passengers fly out on 47 flights till 7pm. With several more flights in the remaining three hours, this number is expected to swell further by anywhere up to 2,000. Given the exodus, airlines, including Air India, IndiGo and AI Express, operated seven extra flights on Wednesday to fly out people from there. Srinagar-bound flights saw a large number of passenger cancellations. The rush to fly out caused fares for flights out of Srinagar to briefly rise to as high as Rs 32,000 for a one-way journey to Delhi, prompting govt to step in.
