A Go First flight from Bengaluru to Malé made an emergency landing at Coimbatore International Airport due to smoke warning detected on the aircraft on Friday noon.
According to the airport authorities, the aircraft, G8 43 with 92 passengers on board, landed safely at Coimbatore airport at 12:57 hours. The Airbus A320 aircraft was parked on an apron and the pilot reported that all operations were normal, they said.
Officials said that the pilot called “Mayday” while crossing Coimbatore airspace. The aircraft was flying through upper airspace of Coimbatore and the distress call was attended by the Air Traffic Control (ATC) of the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL).
As the nearest airport was Coimbatore, CIAL ATC passed the message to Coimbatore ATC and the aircraft was rerouted to Coimbatore.
Coimbatore ATC declared full emergency and all precautions were taken. Fire tenders were positioned at pre-determined positions to act swiftly in case of an emergency.
“While reporting to Coimbatore ATC, the pilot issued a “pan-pan” call, downgrading the emergency from the “Mayday” call,” said an official.
The aircraft descended and landed at Coimbatore airport smoothly and the pilot reported all operations were normal.
Technical staff checked the aircraft and found that the smoke warning went off due to a technical glitch.
Some of the passengers shared videos from the grounded aircraft alleging various inconveniences.
Go First arranged an alternative flight for the passengers of the grounded aircraft. The flight for Malé left at 7.39 p.m. The grounded aircraft is being readied by a technical team from Mumbai.
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