Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact Photographer Petr Popelar
What: Air India A319-100 en route from Mumbai to Kolkata
Where: near Aurangabad
When: Jul 11th 2009 7:08 pm
Who: 88 passengers 6 crew
Why: After takeoff, one engine failed, and the crew decided to return to Mumbai rather than fly without a backup engine. After three hours, the passengers were provided a replacement plane.
View from an airbus similar to the one in the incident
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact Photographer Nitin Sarin
What: Air India Airbus A321-200 en route from Kochi to New Delhi
Where: Nagpur
When: Jul 3rd 2009
Who: 151 passengers and 6 crew
Why: When the engine shut down amid-flight, the plane diverted to Nagpur where it made an emergency landing without any known injuries. Technical details regarding the engine problem have not been released.
What: An Air India Airbus A-320 en route from Delhi to Hyderabad to Tirupati
Where: Delhi
When: Jun 29th 2009 1141 hours
Who: 68 passengers, 6 crew
Why: Thirty minutes into the flight, the control panel indicated a hydraulic problem. The pilot requested to return to Delhi, where passengers debarked safely. Passengers were provided an alternate plane to complete their flight.
No further details were available about the hydraulic problem.
What: Air India Boeing 747-400 en route from Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) to Mumbai
Where: Riyadh
When: May 27th 2009
Who: 300 Passengers
Why: After takeoff, the crew could not retract the landing gear. Air Control told the crew to fly to Mumbai with the gear down.
The captain refused and returned to Riyadh for a safe landing. Then Air India grounded the captain and stopped his salary.
George’s Point of View
This captain is something of an unsung hero, but he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Even though the captain’s job was to ferry the plane, he refused to do so.
However, a ferry flight with gear down in night conditions is not permitted.
So he lost his job for doing the right thing.