Along with an eight-member crew, the aircraft was carrying some cargo.
An Air India Express flight for Saudi Arabia from Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, took off at 7.52am on Saturday. As part of the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’, the flight was going to bring back Indian passengers from Damman. However, the pilots turned around the flight and landed in Thiruvananthapuram at 8.50am, about an hour after take-off, the pilots detected a crack in the windshield, the official said.
Thankfully there were no passengers on board because of the Covid-19 restrictions that were in place. Along with an eight-member crew, the aircraft was carrying some cargo.
Thankfully, there were no passengers on board because of the Covid-19 restrictions that were in place.
“All the crew members, including the pilots, are safe,” said CV Ravindran, director of Thiruvananthapuram airport.
The country’s first international flight with the crew fully vaccinated against Covid-19, Air India Express, the budget wing of national carrier Air India, was operated in June, IX 191, from Delhi to Dubai.
In March last year, post lockdown, normal flight operations came to a halt. The Government started Vande Bharat Mission to evacuate Indians stranded in other countries with Air India Express as a
part of the mission with the first-ever Vande Bharat Mission flight, which brought back passengers from Abu Dhabi on May 7.
In August last year, an Air India Express flight from Dubai with 190 people, including its six-member crew, overshot the tabletop runway during landing at the Kozhikode airport in Kerala amid heavy rains.
The narrow-body B-737 plane fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into pieces, killing 21 people, including both pilots.
