NEW DELHI, July 5: A SpiceJet Boeing 737 Max aircraft on its way to Dubai from Delhi with 150 people on board had to be diverted to Karachi, Pakistan, on Tuesday due to suspected fuel leakage. A spokesman for the SpiceJet, however, said there was no emergency declared and the plane made a normal landing after which the passengers were de-boarded.
Pilots of the Dubai-bound flight noticed unusual fuel reduction in one of the plane’s fuel tanks when it was flying over Pakistani airspace following which they decided to divert the plane to the closest airport, officials of the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
This was the sixth such incident on SpiceJet flights in the last 17 days and the DGCA was investigating all the incidents.
The flight was cruising at 36,000 feet in the Pakistan airspace when the glitch was observed, a source said, adding that the pilots decided to land given that there was another 80-90 minutes of flight time remaining for Dubai.
In a statement, a SpiceJet spokesperson said: “On July 5, 2022, SpiceJet B737 aircraft operating flight SG-11 (Delhi – Dubai) was diverted to Karachi due to an indicator light malfunctioning. The aircraft landed safely at Karachi and passengers were safely disembarked.” But official sources said when an inspection was done at the Karachi airport, no visual leak was observed from the left tank as suspected by the pilots.
The SpiceJet spokesperson said the malfunctioning of the fuel indicator required the pilot to make a landing in Karachi though this was a “precautionary landing, not an emergency one.” “No emergency was declared and the aircraft made a normal landing. There was no earlier report of any malfunction with the aircraft. Passengers have been served refreshments. A replacement aircraft is being sent to Karachi that will take the passengers to Dubai,” the spokesperson added.
The aviation regulator conducted a fleet-wide safety audit of SpiceJet aircraft just last month and continues to carry out inspections on a case by case basis.
The landing in Karachi comes just two days after the pilot of a SpiceJet Q400 airliner flying from Delhi to Jabalpur made a ‘May Day’ distress call and returned to Delhi after smoke was detected in the cabin. The aircraft was at an altitude of 5,000 feet when the crew first noticed the smoke and the smoke alarm was triggered.
The smoke started increasing when the flight reached an altitude of 14,000 feet. The pilot then informed the Air Traffic Control and May Day was declared. Following this, the flight turned back towards Delhi. Earlier, on June 19, a Delhi-bound SpiceJet aircraft, with 185 passengers on board, made an emergency landing in Patna right after take-off as its left engine caught fire following a bird hit.
(Manas Dasgupta)