Air Arabia flight suffers hydraulic failure, lands safely in Kochi amid full emergency
KOCHI: An Air Arabia flight made an emergency landing at the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) on Friday night after the aircraft’s landing gear system reported a hydraulic failure.
The airport declared full-emergency for around one-and-a-half hours to prepare for the landing and the flight G9-426, from Sharjah to Kochi, carrying 222 passengers and seven crew members, landed safely on the runway by 7.29pm. All passengers and crew are safe and no injuries were reported.
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The flight which was scheduled to land at 7.13pm reported the hydraulic failure to the Air Traffic Controller (ATC), following which the airport stopped all flight operations and declared full-emergency at 6.41. All departures and arrivals were temporarily suspended and the runway was cleared for the emergency landing.
Two flights Go Air (G 8336) and Air Arabia (3L125), which were scheduled to land at that time, were diverted to Kannur and Coimbatore airport respectively.
All protocols were in place and Airport Rescue & Fire Fighting Service (ARFFS), Central Industrial Security Force, Quick Response Team (QRT) medics, ambulance etc. were on standby to face any eventualities. After that, the flight was given permission to make the emergency landing.
Once the flight made a safe landing on the runway by 7.29pm, the engines were immediately turned off to prevent the risk of fire. All passengers were de-boarded immediately. The engineers checked the aircraft, which was later towed away to Bay.16 by 8pm. The runway was cleared and declared fit for operations by 8.14pm. The full-emergency was withdrawn by 8.22pm, following which the flight operations resumed with an Indigo flight (6E6113) departing to Chennai.
“A concerted effort and timely coordination have helped CIAL to see through the airport emergency situation. Though such a situation occurred after a long period, it was proved that the safety systems worked effectively. We could resume the operations in 45 minutes,” CIAL managing director S Suhas.
