Flat tire leaves Air India passengers stranded for five hours

INDORE: About 130 passengers on board the Air India IC 606 flight were stranded for five hours at the Devi Ahilyabai Airport here at on Friday morning when one of its tires deflated just before take off for Delhi at 7.50 am.

Air India's Mumbai-Indore-Bhopal-Delhi flight (IC 606) landed at Indore airport at 7.20 am from Mumbai and it was expected to take off for Bhopal at 7.50 am.

The flight had to be cancelled and the passengers were sent to Delhi via Bhopal in another flight at 12.45 pm. This was the second flight to have been grounded at the city airport here in the last four days, after a Raipur-bound Jet Lite flight suffered a bird-hit at the airport on April 24.

Airport director RN Shinde said, "All the passengers were de-boarded safely and sent to Delhi by another aircraft. Experts are inspecting the grounded aircraft to figure out the reason for deflation of the tire."

The flight landed safely from Mumbai and boarding announcement was made after a technical team inspected it. However the deflated tire was detected when a couple of passengers were left to board the flight. It was then that the flight was cancelled.

Shinde however said the tire was damaged before touching the runway.

"Flight would not have been announced, had the technical error been spotted during inspection. It occurred after inspection," said an Air India official pleading anonymity.

The passengers later left with the IC 506 flight at 12.45 pm for Delhi via Bhopal from Indore. A technical team has been called from Delhi to inspect the grounded aircraft.