All the 122 passengers on an Air India flight that made an emergency landing in Pakistan on Monday have safely returned to India on a special relief flight.
An Air India relief plane has landed at New Delhi airport with 122 passengers of another flight that made an emergency landing in Pakistan's southern Sindh province early on Monday morning after its alarm light started blipping.
The Air India Airbus A320 sent to pick up the stranded passengers took off from Nawabshah airport in Sindh shortly after 3pm, Pakistani officials said.
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A team of engineers flew in on the relief aircraft to repair the Air India plane that made the emergency landing at Nawabshah airport at 3.37am. A team of technical experts from Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority assisting its Indian counterparts.
Earlier in the day, the captain of the Air India flight going from Abu Dhabi to New Delhi sought permission for an emergency landing after emergency light showed a problem with the hydraulic system while in Pakistani airspace.
The aircraft landed safely and the flight's 122 passengers and eight crew members were unharmed, civil aviation authority spokesman Pervez George said.
Though Pakistani authorities had offered to allow the passengers to disembark and use the Nawabshah airport's lounges, the captain preferred to have them remain on board, officials said. The captain asked for drinking water and this was supplied to the aircraft, they said.
Defence secretary Nargis Sethi had instructed Civil Aviation Authority chief Nadeem Khan Yousufzai to provide all possible facilities and assistance to the crew and passengers of the Air India plane at Nawabshah.
'False alarm' led plane to land in Pakistan: Officials
Air India engineers, who were flown to Nawabshah airport in Pakistan to attend to an Airbus A-319 that had landed under emergency conditions on Monday, have found that the cockpit panel had emitted a "false alarm" about a technical problem.
"There was nothing wrong with the hydraulic system of the aircraft and, apparently the cockpit panel emitted false alarm making red lights to blip," airline officials said here.
"However, even such a technical glitch has to be corrected and that is being done," they said.
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