Air India flight from Delhi to San Francisco makes emergency landing in Japan; here’s what happened

The spokesperson added that an update on the passenger’s health would be available once the San-Francisco bound flight lands in Japan’s Sapporo. (Reuters)

In an unprecedented turn of events, an Air India flight from Delhi to San Francisco was diverted to Sapporo, Japan, after a medical emergency on board. A passenger on board had suffered a heart problem due to which the flight was diverted, an airline spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that an update on the passenger’s health would be available once the San-Francisco bound flight lands in Japan’s Sapporo. “Air India Flt AI 173 Delhi to San Francisco diverted to SPK due to a medical emergency,” the airline posted on Twitter.

The aeroplane had taken off from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4:30 am and was slated to reach San Francisco International Airport at 6 am local time. It was turned back to the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’, Japan after it had flown past it.

Meanwhile, earlier on March 1, a major mishap was averted after an Indigo operating flight was turned back towards Mumbai airport after detecting vibration in engine-1. The Indigo operating flight 6E-395 which was en route to Kolkata was turned back to Mumbai airport after the problem in the engine-1 was spotted.

The flight 6E 395, which took off from Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) at around 6:18 pm with 166 passengers had returned to Mumbai and reportedly landed safely a 6:58 pm.

In a statement, the domestic-airliner said that the flight had to return to Mumbai “due to a technical glitch (oil chip in one engine) in the aircraft.”

As per PTI report, there was oil chip detection in engine 1 of the plane. “IndiGo has reported this incident to DGCA and has also initiated an internal enquiry on the incident,” the airline said. All the passengers had landed safely and an alternative flight took off at 7:45 pm with a total delay of one hour and 50 minutes.