Sharjah-bound Air India Express flight delayed for about 14 hours

A Sharjah-bound flight operated by Air India Express was delayed for about 14 hours at the Tiruchirappalli airport in India’s Tamil Nadu on Saturday morning.

The plane, which had 102 passengers, was delayed after the pilot found an engineering snag, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

The snag was discovered when passengers were about to board the plane at 3.20am, according to airport officials.

All the passengers were accommodated in hotels across the city, while technicians fixed the issue after spare-parts were flown in from the city of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, an airline spokesperson told PTI.

The plane finally left for Sharjah at 5pm, after a delay of about 14 hours, officials said.

This is the second incident reported by Air India Express at the Tiruchirappalli airport this month.

On October 12, one of the wheels of a Dubai-bound Air India Express plane hit the compound wall of the airport.

The Boeing 737 flight, which had 130 passengers and six crew, continued to fly for nearly three hours before it was diverted to Mumbai where it made a safe emergency landing.

Officials later revealed that the plane was possibly “overloaded” when its tyre hit equipment that is used to guide a pilot to land a flight and then brushed the compound wall during take-off.