Indian airliner makes medical emergency landing at Karachi airport
An Indian airliner carrying 186 passengers from Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah made an emergency landing at the Karachi airport last night due to a passenger falling ill, the Pakistan Airport Authority (PAA) said on Saturday.
The PAA, established on August 9 is a public sector autonomous body working under the aviation ministry.
It came into being after the CAA was divided into two entities — the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) was entrusted with regulatory functions, whereas the PAA was entrusted with the commercial and operational aspects of airports.
An IndiGo flight made a “medical emergency landing” at the Jinnah International Airport at 10:54pm on Friday night, a PAA statement said.
It said a passenger was “immediately provided with medicines”, following which the person’s “condition improved”. After a doctor declared the passenger fit to fly, the flight departed for its destination of Jeddah at around 2am, the statement added.
According to FlightRadar24, which tracks flights, the aircraft was an Airbus A321-271NX model with flight number 6E63.
There have also been multiple previous instances of Indian airlines making emergency landings at Jinnah International Airport, including two in July 2022.
On July 5, 2022, a Dubai-bound SpiceJet aircraft took off from Delhi for Dubai but was diverted to Karachi after the captain reported a fault. The airline cited the reason for the “normal landing” as an indicator light malfunctioning.
According to a spokesman for the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, the passengers were initially asked to stay inside the plane. SpiceJet said the passengers were then safely disembarked before a replacement aircraft was sent to Karachi to take them to Dubai.
A week later, an IndiGo airline plane heading from Sharjah to India’s Hyderabad landed “safely” at the Karachi airport after reporting a “technical defect”.
The next day, India’s aviation regulator had issued a warning notice to SpiceJet after a review of recent incidents showed “poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions” by the airline.
In the latest incident, a Fly Jinnah plane heading from Karachi to Lahore had to make an emergency landing in September at the city’s Allama Iqbal International Airport after its cargo compartment was filled with smoke.