A Male-bound flight of Go First was diverted to Coimbatore on Friday when a 'faulty' smoke alarm went off mid-air, sources said.The Bengaluru-Male plane was carrying 92 passengers.
The aircraft landed safely at the Coimbatore airport and has been parked in the apron. According to sources, the pilot reported that all operations were normal.
The alarm went off after the twin engines apparently overheated. The engineers checked the engines and declared that there was some 'fault' in the alarm and declared that the aircraft was fit to travel, the sources said. Subsequently, it proceeded towards its destination. When asked about this incident, a Go First spokesperson said: "The matter is being inspected by the Go First engineering team and rectification is underway."
A passenger in the flight said, "We departed at 11:45 am and at 12:45, we had a message that we were landing. We were confused because we were told the flight was two and a half hours long. We realised that there was a smoke detector and had to do an emergency landing in Coimbatore. Post that, we had no information." She added that they boarded the flight at 11 am and had nothing but water till 5 pm.
Today, a Go First flight from Bengaluru heading to Male, Maldives was diverted to Coimbatore because a 'faulty' smoke alarm went off mid-air. A passenger in this flight says that they had to wait in the flight for nearly 4 hours with just water and weren't given any updates. pic.twitter.com/zjp8gmZBxn
— Akchayaa Rajkumar (@harmlesssneeze) August 12, 2022
"We were made to sit in the flight for almost three to four hours as they (the airline) did not want us to go through immigration again. But now they are asking us to disembark, go through immigration again and sit in the next flight,” another passenger remarked.
Another passenger says that they were made to sit in the flight for nearly 4 hours so that they don't have to go through immigration again but later told them to get down, go through immigration and get on another flight. pic.twitter.com/4AOykwk7GD
— Akchayaa Rajkumar (@harmlesssneeze) August 12, 2022
Of late, there have been a few instances where domestic flights faced technical problems and their routes were redirected. In July 2022, Go First flights from Mumbai to Leh, and from Srinagar to Delhi, had engine problems and both of them were grounded. The flight heading to Leh was diverted to Delhi as there was a fault in engine number 2, while the Delhi-bound flight returned to Srinagar for the same reason.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that they were investigating the matter and the flights would resume only when the civil aviation authorities cleared it. In July 2022, Union Minister for Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia held multiple meetings with airlines and officials from DGCA to ensure that such incidents don’t recur.
In July 2022, an Indigo flight bound for Sharjah from Hyderabad was diverted to Karachi, Pakistan when the pilots noticed a defect in one of the engines. In the same month, an Air India flight from Calicut to Dubai was diverted to Muscat after there was a burning smell in the cabin mid-flight.
(With PTI inputs)