Kerala chief minister’s flight develops mid-air engine failure
An Indian Airlines flight carrying 136 passengers, including Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and two other ministers, from here to New Delhi via Kochi had a miraculous escape when it had to land in Nagpur following a mid-air failure of one of its twin engines.
The flight which took off from here at 6:15 am landed in Kochi and had then taken off for Delhi with 136 passengers when it developed the snag near Nagpur.
State Minister for Water Resources N K Premchandran who was also on the flight told Deccan Herald that he heard a loud noise at the back of the plane and it shook. “It was enough to shake us off the slumber. The sound of the engines also became quite feeble. Soon, the pilot announced that there was a technical snag and asked us to fasten our seatbelts as we were landing in Nagpur,” said the minister.
Premachandran, who was also a member of Parliament, said the fact that there was no turbulence and the sky was clear made it a bit scary.
New aircraft
“We became a bit apprehensive and our worries were over only after the pilot landed the plane safely. It was only after the landing that the pilot announced very apologetically that one of the engines of the Airbus 321 had indeed failed,” he said. According to the minister, the pilot also appeared to be surprised as he said that the aircraft was brand new and that there was no reason for it to develop an engine failure. Later, the VIPs and passengers continued their journey in another aircraft which was flown in from Delhi.
Indian Airlines sources here told Deccan Herald that since the A 321 aircraft was only a year old the incident was alarming.
“Engine failure is a rare incident even though it does not endanger an aircraft all on a sudden. It can still carry on flying for two more hours with a single engine,’’ a source said.
Achuthanandan and Premachandran were in Delhi to attend a meeting on the Mullaperiyar Dam controversy between Kerala and Tamil Nadu convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the evening. Achuthanandan and Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan would be in Delhi for two more days to attend a crucial meeting of the CPM politburo which will discuss the issues in the party’s Kerala unit and the setback the LDF suffered in the Lok Sabha elections.
