Indian plane makes emergency landing in Karachi

Indian low-cost airline SpiceJet’s passenger plane made an emergency landing at the Karachi airport, the least expected destination for Indian passengers due to not so smooth political situation between the two south Asian neighbours.

The Indian passenger plane landed at Jinnah International Airport at 09:17am on Tuesday due to engine malfunction after obtaining permission, the Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) spokesperson said.

Pilots of Boeing 373 flying from Delhi to Dubai realised during their flight that one of their fuel tanks was indicating an error. The plane contacted control tower in Karachi and it was allowed to land on Pakistani soil.

SpiceJet B737 aircraft operating flight SG-11 (Delhi - Dubai) was diverted to Karachi due to the malfunctioning of an indicator light, SpiceJet said in a tweet. The aircraft landed in Karachi where passengers disembarked safely.

“I hope next time it lands with both engines working and arrives with love and peace with hundreds of Indians passengers,” a Pakistani citizen Riazul Haq said.

Read 36 pilgrims left stranded at Islamabad International Airport

The passengers were allowed to sit in transit lounge and offered refreshments as a positive gesture from the Pakistani authorities, aviation expert Wahid Mukhtar said.

SpiceJet said no emergency was declared and the aircraft made a normal landing. There was no earlier report of any aircraft malfunction.

A PIA engineer went into the cockpit and inspected the engine malfunction light indicator, as per the CAA. Later in the day, SpiceJet Company announced arranging an alternative aircraft to fly the stranded passengers.

At night around 9pm, an alternative SpiceJet aircraft took off with 132 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

Due to political tension, although it has diluted these days, there is insignificant air traffic between the two countries, Mukhtar said. Only religious pilgrims or people with cross-border family members visit the other side. Both the countries have religious places to offer each other such as Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Pakistan for the Sikh community or Ajmer Sharif in India for the Pakistani Muslims.

“These people mostly come from the lower middle-income class so they cannot afford to travel through air,” he said. However, there were many businessmen and traders who used to do trading between the two countries through barter system; for example, they would export clothes from Pakistan to India and bring back spice or hand-made jewellery.

Many Pakistani companies need raw material that can come from India and vice versa such as agricultural raw materials for food companies in Pakistan, he said.

Before Covid-19, Pakistan had 22.3 million international traffic that dropped significantly due to the pandemic lockdown that is now picking up gradually, the aviation expert said. Nowadays, “foreign airlines have stopped remitting from Pakistan to their headquarters because of shortage of foreign exchange in the country that is also discouraging the international flight business in Pakistan”.