An Air India plane with more than 160 passengers and crew aboard made an emergency landing at New Delhi’s international airport Sunday, an official for the airline said.
The Airbus A-310 reported engine trouble while travelling from the Saudi city of Jeddah to New Delhi via the northern city of Lucknow, the official said.
‘‘The aircraft reported a technical fault and the flight landed under emergency conditions,’’ said Jitender Bhargava, director of public relations for Air India.
‘‘The fire brigade was put on alert as part of normal procedures for such a landing,’’ he told AFP.
No injuries were reported among the passengers and crew.
The news was misreported.
Local press in Chennai called it "Indthian Aairlines A319" while the TV channel here said "Indian Hhairlines"
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8678.html No pilots? We’ll train them, says AI ZEESHAN SHAIKHPosted online: Monday, July 17, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print EmailAviation: To hire 200 raw science & engineering grads, will fund pilot training
MUMBAI, JULY 16:With pilots in India becoming a rare commodity, airlines are coming up with novel concepts to tide over the shortage.
Air-India, for one, plans to recruit around 200 science and engineering graduates with almost no flying experience and turn them into pilots. The airline has already started looking out for flying training schools in India and abroad which would provide Commercial Pilot License and other training to these recruits.
‘‘A-I is in the process of recruiting science and engineering graduates with zero flying background. We are also looking out at select Flying Training Institutes of repute to which these selected candidates will be directed to undergo training,’’ a senior Air India official said.
The airline has already called for bids from interested institutes. The carrier is proposing to direct 150 to 200 such cadets in a batch of 50, to these institutes in India or abroad, for obtaining Commercial Pilot License with IR and Multi Engine Rating, as per the prescribed syllabus and the requirements of DGCA India.
Even though the cadet would have to pay his way through the CPL course, the airline plans to extend support in providing the selected cadet in obtaining an educational loan. Once the cadet gets his CPL, he will then be asked to complete the ground training and simulator training on B737-800 type to pre-qualify them for aircraft training and type endorsement. This portion of the training will be paid for by Air-India.
Meanwhile, the airline is also looking at hiring a professional recruitment agency to recruit these 150-200 science and engineering graduates who will be selected through an all-India written test.
Getting a CPL license is a costly proposition with training costing close to Rs 20 lakh. However, with the airline assuring financial help to the cadets it would lower their financial burden. Experts say that these cadets would have to sign a five- to seven-year bond with Air-India and the airline would recover the costs incurred on training the cadets from their salaries.
A-I itself had plans to set up its own flight training school and has also bid for running the proposed National Flying Training School which the government plans to set up in Gondia, Maharashtra, which would help it in churning out a steady stream of high-quality pilots.
However, both the projects have not taken off yet.
The airline currently has around 550 pilots and will be needing an additional 100 pilots every year over the next seven years. This huge need of personnel is fuelled by the exponential growth in the Indian aviation market and the fleet augmentation exercise of the airline where it plans to add 68 new aircraft.
The actual routing ended up being BLR-BOM-FRA(circle over)-LHR-FRA-ORD and we were more than 7 hours delayed. No explanation to the waiting family in ORD either. They told us on the plane that since we coulnt land in FRA after circling they were running low on fuel and were divertign to LHR to get fuel and then we had to go back to FRA to get other passengers adn crew, catering...we never got off teh plane in that 30 + hour ordeal. I never wanted to go on AI again but we had to due to an emergency in 1998 and they decided to take us ORD-LHR-DEL-BOM-BLR after returning form that I have not flown AI again and
I probably will not do so until they receive their new 777s and 787s and make sure I dont have to stop like 5 times to get to BLR with all the 1-stop options available today.