NEW DELHI: India’s aviation regulator said Saturday it was probing an engine fire that broke out on a passenger jet just as it was about to take off from Delhi airport.
The IndiGo airlines flight was carrying 184 people to tech hub Bangaluru and had just begun its thrust on the runway when the fire was spotted, forcing its pilot to return to the bay and evacuate the cabin.
No injuries were reported and officials said the plane was emptied safely.
“The priority is to carry out a detailed investigation of the incident and ascertain the reasons for the fire in the engine,” Arun Kumar, chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation told reporters.
“Fortunately, the fire was extinguished swiftly and the aircraft is now grounded.”
Passengers told local media they had heard a loud bang before spotting flames from the engine fire.
IndiGo said the aircraft experienced a technical issue, “immediately after which the pilot aborted the take-off and the aircraft safely returned to the bay.”
“All passengers and crew are safe and an alternative aircraft was arranged to operate the flight, which took off at 12.16 am on Saturday,” the company said in a statement.
IndiGo is the country’s largest private budget airline and controls almost 60 percent of the domestic market.
India has recorded numerous air safety breaches this year including several alarming incidents by SpiceJet, the country’s second-largest carrier.
Seventeen people were injured when a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai struck turbulence in May, while in July a Dubai-bound plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Pakistan due to a faulty cockpit light.
Last month, an Air India Express plane was forced to abort take-off when an engine caught fire at Muscat airport in Oman, injuring several passengers.
India investigating plane engine fire at Delhi airport
https://arab.news/gvx7s
India investigating plane engine fire at Delhi airport
- The IndiGo airlines flight with 184 people had just begun its thrust on the runway when fire was spotted
- Indian authorities say no injuries were reported and passengers were safely evacuated from the plane
UK proposal to revisit Israel arms license suspension ‘appalling’: Civil society groups
- ‘A continuation of the status quo is insufficient, but a revocation of its current policies is altogether unconscionable’
- ‘It also risks demonstrating the UK’s weak commitment to upholding international law’
LONDON: The UK government’s overtures toward unblocking arms licenses to Israel have been condemned by five major civil society groups.
Amid outrage over the war on Gaza, the government suspended about 30 of 350 arms licenses to Israel in September 2024.
Components for the F-35 jet used by the Israeli Air Force were exempt from the partial suspension, despite the aircraft being used extensively to target civilian areas of Gaza.
In July 2024, three 2,000-pound bombs were dropped by F-35s on an area in Khan Younis that Israel had declared a “safe zone,” killing 90 Palestinians.
Peter Kyle, the government’s business and trade secretary, has now committed to revisiting UK-Israel trade relations and the partial pause on arms export licenses. Kyle told the London-based Jewish Chronicle that the two issues are “intrinsically linked.”
In response, the Campaign Against Arms Trade, Global Justice Now, the Global Legal Action Network, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and War on Want condemned the proposal as “appalling.”
On top of previous moves ostensibly aimed at curtailing Israeli aggression in Gaza, the UK government also suspended talks on a new trade deal last May but failed to suspend the existing trade agreement.
The five leading civil society organizations said in a joint statement: “Peter Kyle said that he wants to see movement towards a ‘sustainable peace’ in order for these measures to be considered. This position is completely divorced from reality.
“Israel’s continued killing of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank demonstrates a total disregard for peace, and a continuation of the genocide of the Palestinian people.
“Furthermore, Israel has concentrated the population of Gaza into an area beyond the Yellow Line, constituting only 42 percent of the Gaza Strip, and continues to expand this area.”
The five organizations also highlighted Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in its “zone of control” in Gaza, in an attempt to “ensure that life continues to be unlivable” in the war-torn enclave.
There has been “little or no improvement” in the factors cited by the UK government for the initial arms export suspensions, the statement said.
“In fact, it is not even the case that there has been no substantive change. Rather, Israel has actively introduced new disruptions to aid distribution in Gaza, including its revocation of the licenses of 37 international non-governmental organisations working on aid provision in Gaza and the West Bank,” it added.
The UK government must continue to suspend the 30 licenses, but also the remaining 320, and cancel the existing free trade agreement with Israel, the five groups said.
“A continuation of the status quo is insufficient, but a revocation of its current policies is altogether unconscionable,” they added.
“It not only fails to hold Israel to account for its genocide of the Palestinian people, but it also risks demonstrating the UK’s weak commitment to upholding international law, already revealed through its continued supply of arms and business-as-usual approach to arms and economic trade with Israel, which has been damaged significantly in recent years by the UK’s continued support of Israel, despite its continued crimes against the Palestinian people.”
