An Agartala-Kolkata bound Air India flight AI-744 narrowly escaped major devastation due to a quick decision of the pilot supported by the ATC and ground staff of Agartala’s MBB Airport on Friday.

Air India flight AI-744 encountered a technical problem while en route from Agartala to Kolkata on Friday morning. The pilot noticed the matter and quickly brought the aircraft back from the runway and put it in the bay and got all the passengers off safely. An Air India official said all passengers were deplaned due to a technical problem on the flight from Agartala to Kolkata. Arrangements have been made for them to take another flight to Kolkata.

Sources said that an Air India flight from Kolkata arrived at Agartala Friday morning like every other day. Again the plane was preparing to fly to Kolkata with passengers. Air India flight AI-744 was approaching the runway when the aircraft's smoke detector began to sound a distress signal. The pilot immediately brought the aircraft back from the runway to the bay to diagnose the problem and allowed all passengers to disembark safely. Passengers panicked for a while in that incident. But, they quickly became normal due to the efforts of the airmen.

All the passengers on board were safely debarked. Some passengers were yet to recover from the bone-chilling panic after the all-set flight failed to take off followed by a technical glitch reported in the flight.

The crew detected a pressure point at the hydraulic pipe which could have been the reason for the alarm. However, later the flight was cancelled due to safety reasons and passengers were rescheduled or given alternate seat arrangements for the evening flights. As per reliable sources, the engineering team from Kolkata reached Agartala with the spare parts and efforts are on to rectify the faults by Friday night.

Sources added that the pilot sensing a danger, immediately reports the issue to the Agartala ATC( Air Traffic Control)  and seeks urgent permission to revert its journey keeping the safety of passengers on board in mind, and brings the flight at the instant to the safety bay. As per procedure, all passengers were disembarked and the aircraft was checked thoroughly by the engineering team of Air India.

 All the safety and security departments were promptly activated to evacuate the passengers. Under this frightening situation, many passengers were about to get their limbs chilled due to fear factors and panic. Even if some passengers were routed in other planes most of the passengers could not go today and faced a tough time in glaring contrast to a pleasant air trip. Passengers thanked the pilot and other crew members of the flight for safely navigating the aircraft back to the bay. Later it was learnt that the release of smoke was due to overheating of hydraulic pressure.

An Air India official said there was no major problem with the plane. A slight technical problem occurred. Sometimes they face such problems. Hence, it is nothing to worry about. There were a total of 124 passengers on the plane. Arrangements have been made for them to take another flight to Kolkata. According to him, the aircraft is currently being repaired at MBB airport. The aircraft will return from Agartala tomorrow after being repaired.