Delhi DCP shares his 'harrowing' experience over Indigo flight delay

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In a nightmare scenario, an Delhi-bound IndiGo flight allegedly was forced to land at the Chandigarh airport with “fuel left for just 1-2 minutes”. Delhi Deputy Commissioner Police (Crime) Satish Kumar, who was onboard, shared his experience  on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

In his post, Kumar said the flight (6E 2702) was swas scheduled to take off at 3.25 pm and arrive in Delhi at 4.30 pm, but that the pilot told passengers around 4.15 pm that departure was delayed due to bad weather in Delhi.

Kumar added that by then, several passengers and a member of the flight crew started vomiting out of panic. He tagged the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to look into whether all the standard operating procedures were followed.

“Finally the plane managed to land at 6:10 p.m. at Chandigarh Airport after a lapse of 115 minutes since the 45 minutes Holding fuel announcement. Got to know after landing that we’ve landed in the nick of time with only 1 or 2 minutes of fuel left from the crew staff. What an ordeal it was for the passengers … Kindly enquire if all SOPs were followed or was it the narrowest escape?” Kumar added in his post.

IndiGo issued a statement on the incident.

“IndiGo flight 6E 2702 operating between Ayodhya and Delhi on April 13th was diverted to Chandigarh due to bad weather in Delhi. The captain executed a go-around which is in line with the standard operating procedure. This is an absolutely safe maneuver (sic). The aircraft had sufficient fuel at all times to divert to an alternate airport, as per regulations. Safety of our esteemed passengers is of prime importance to us. We regret any inconvenience that may have been caused due to factors beyond the airline’s control,” the airline said in the statement.

Till now the post on X has become pretty much viral as it has over 2.03 lakh views and hundreds of reposts and several replies. Reacting to this, Suman Nalwa, who is the PRO of DCP Delhi Police quote-posted this.

A veteran of the Aviation Industry Captain Shakti Lumba quote posted and said, ”Straight up your street @DGCAIndia after two missed approaches a diversion is mandatory: Still holding instead of diverting and then landing allegedly on fumes is a gross safety violation @IndiGo6E must investigate this flight and amount of fuel on arrival at Chandigarh: This Captain has no business being in Command if the report is correct.”