An IndiGo airlines flight from Pune to Jaipur was diverted and made an emergency landing in Mumbai early on Thursday after one its engines malfunctioned, the latest in a string of incidents involving the Airbus A320Neo aircraft widely used in the industry.
According to flight tracking data, the plane, with 183 people on board, turned around roughly an hour into its flight and landed shortly after 4.30am at Mumbai, where airport officials said a full emergency had been declared and firefighting vehicles put on standby as per protocol. The flight landed safely.
The A320Neo aircraft was equipped with a Pratt&Whitney (P&W) engine, which has shown high failure rates and has prompted aviation authorities around the world – including India — to order airlines to replace it or curtail operations in the interest of passenger safety.
When the problem came into focus in 2018, an estimated 40% of India’s domestic air traffic was believed to be on A320Neos.
On Thursday, an official from India’s aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the incident occurred when Engine 2 stalled while cruising at 30,000 feet. A visual inspection later showed signs of damage to a specific part of the engine — the low pressure turbine blades – that is consistent with a known problem with some P&W engines. The other engine had been modified to correct the mechanical flaw.
There are 127 P&W powered A320Neos in India, with IndiGo deploying the bulk of them at 98 aircraft. The rest are on GoAir’s fleet. Air India and Vistara, too, operate A320Neo jets, but these are equipped with a different engine.
IndiGo has replaced at least one vulnerable engine on its fleet, but has now been put on a May 31 deadline to replace all engines. According to the DGCA official, GoAir is likely to complete replacement of one engine across its fleet in the next week. Information on how many planes are still flying with at least one unmodified engine was not immediately available.
A passenger aircraft can fly with one functioning engine, but will need to land as soon as possible. Replacing at least one of the potentially faulty engines minimises the risk of a catastrophe.
“It is an unsafe condition, which we are battling currently. With one modified (which fixes the vulnerability) engine on all aircraft, there is 100% passenger safety but symptoms from unmodified engines will have to be responded to and resolved, so these air turnback or diversions might continue,” this official added.
Problems with the P&W engines came into focus in India in 2018, prompting the DGCA to issue a series of advisories. At one point, it prohibited A320Neo flights from being used on services to Port Blair since the route put the planes more than an hour away from any airport along the way – a potential safety issue in case of an emergency.
The American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) too have put airlines on a deadline to replace vulnerable engines. FAA has ordered all engines to be replaced by November, 2020, while the EASA has till now called for only one engine to be replaced by March 2020.
In November, DGCA asked airlines to expedite replacement of engines, warning, “this situation cannot be allowed to go on indefinitely”. On January 13, the DGCA noted that the work done by IndiGo was satisfactory, and that the deadline for IndiGo to get rid of all unmodified engines by May 31, 2020.
On Thursday’s incident, a statement from IndiGo said the flight was diverted after “the pilot observed an engine vibration message and followed the laid standard operating procedures”.
The airline did not give any more details about the problems, but added that the aircraft was under inspection at Mumbai and all passengers were accommodated on another aircraft that left for Jaipur roughly four hours later.
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