On Monday, an Air Arabia Abu Dhabi aircraft had to cut short its return flight to the Middle East and make an emergency landing in India due to engine failure. The airplane made a safe landing in the coastal state of Gujarat, and thankfully, no injuries were reported.

Journey cut short

On June 6th, an Air Arabia Abu Dhabi flight made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat. The aircraft – an Airbus A320 (A6-AOT) – was performing flight 3L62 from Chittagong in Bangladesh to Abu Dhabi. Its previous flight to Chittagong – 3L61 – earlier in the day was incident-free.

Any flight between the Middle East and Bangladesh has to cross vast stretches of India, and it was almost towards the end of the India portion of the journey when flight 3L62 had to turn back and divert to Ahmedabad.

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The A320 had to turn around and divert to Ahmedabad. Photo: FlightRadar24.com

Mayday

According to reports, one of the engines on the A320 developed a snag mid-air, resulting in the pilots shutting it down and declaring an emergency. People aware of the matter told The Times of India,

“While in cruise, the pilots got a warning for engine 1 stalling and the electronic centralized aircraft monitor (ECAM) failing. The pilots shut down engine number 1. They diverted to Ahmedabad, declared mayday and landed there safely.”

An ECAM is a system on an Airbus aircraft, which monitors and displays engine and aircraft system information to the pilots. In the event of a malfunction, it will display the fault and may also indicate the appropriate steps of the remedial action.

The aircraft in question (A6-AOT) is 4.8 years old and was delivered to Abu Dhabi in August 2017. It is fitted with CFM56 engines.

Air Arabia low-cost carrier begins flights to Sheremetyevo Airport
The aircraft was still in Ahemdabad at the time of writing. Photo: Getty Images

DGCA swings into action

India’s aviation watchdog, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) have been notified. The DGCA responded with a statement, saying,

“ENG1 was shut down. Crew declared mayday and diverted to Ahmedabad. Aircraft landed safely at Ahmedabad. Team from DGCA, Mumbai office in consultation with AAIB is being sent to Ahmedabad for preliminary investigation.”

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Data from FlightRadar24.com shows that the aircraft is still positioned in Ahmedabad. The DGCA has initiated an investigation into the incident and would want to find out if there are any similarities to several other engine snags in India, which it has been investigating.

Last month, Simple Flying reported that the agency is looking into three separate incidents of Indian carriers (two A320s of Air India and one 737 MAX of SpiceJet), which developed engine troubles mid-flight, forcing the pilots to shut down the faulty engine. All incidents were related to CFM engines. In 2020, IndiGo and Go First also faced engine scrutiny after some of their A320neo P&W engines developed problems, prompting the DGCA to ground those planes.

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Source: The Times of India