Plane carrying 180 makes emergency landing, flyers safe
Times of India | 16 March 2024
Kolkata: An Air India Express flight, I5 558 — coming from Bengaluru with 174 passengers and 6 crew members — made a full emergency landing at Kolkata airport during the early hours of Friday after the pilot reported a snag in the aircraft’s hydraulic system. It includes flight controls and landing gears, both critical during landing.
Airport officials said the flight was about to land at Kolkata around 12.30am when the controls in the cockpit indicated a hydraulic system snag. The pilot then alerted the air traffic control (ATC) manager and requested for a full emergency landing. While loss of hydraulic pressure in flight controls like the wing flaps can cause a problem in reducing the plane’s speed after it touches down, the failure to deploy the landing gear can pose an even bigger challenge and force a belly landing.
However, the problem was sorted before the flight finally touched down. Nevertheless, full emergency procedures that included deployment of fire tenders and ambulance were in place as the pilot managed to land the plane safely. The plane took a long time to exit the runway . Engineers inspected the aircraft.