The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Friday that the crew of the IndiGo flight from Delhi to Srinagar had sought permission on Wednesday to enter Pakistan airspace to avoid turbulence, but the request was rejected. According to news agency PTI, the aviation watchdog, in a detailed statement about the incident, said that there was no injury to the passengers who were on the flight and that the aircraft's nose radome was damaged.
According to the report, DGCA is investigating the incident of the aircraft encountering turbulence.
On Wednesday, IndiGo's A321 neo aircraft operating flight 6E 2142 encountered a hailstorm and severe turbulence near Pathankot. As per the crew statement, they requested Northern control (IAF) for deviation towards the left (International Border) due to weather on the route; however, it was not approved. Later, the crew contacted Lahore to enter into their airspace to avoid the weather, but the same was refused too, DGCA said.
The crew initially tried to return back, but as they were close to the thunderstorm cloud, they decided to penetrate the weather. They subsequently encountered the hailstorm and severe turbulence. The statement further said that the crew chose to continue at the same heading to exit the weather by the shortest route towards Srinagar.
Earlier, news agency PTI reported that the Lahore ATC had rejected the request of the pilot of the flight to use the Pakistan airspace to avoid turbulence. While in a thunderstorm cloud, the regulator said warnings of Angle of Attack fault, Alternate Law protection lost, and backup Speed scale unreliable were triggered.
Due to the updraft and downdraft encountered by the aircraft, the autopilot tripped, and the aircraft speed had wide variations. As a result, Maximum Operating Speed/Maximum Operating Mach (VMO/MMO) warnings and repeated stall warnings were triggered, the statement said.
The DGCA said that during this period the aircraft rate of descent reached 8,500 fpm (feet per minute) and crew flew the aircraft manually till they exited the hailstorm. After carrying out all the checklist actions, the crew declared 'PAN PAN' to Srinagar ATC and requested RADAR vectors and made a safe landing with auto thrust operating normally, the statement said. PAN, PAN generally refers to an emergency situation.
DGCA said that the matter is under probe and that there was no injury to any of the passengers on-board the flight.
(With inputs from PTI)
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