Air India relief plane reaches New Delhi

KARACHI: A special planea arrived in New Delhi after picking up 128 passengers onboard an Air India flight, which had made an emergency landing in Nawabshah.

Hours after an Air India plane with 128 people onboard made an emergency landing at Nawabshah airport, a relief plane from India reached there to bring the passengers back.

A team of engineers also arrived to rectify the technical glitch that forced the emergency landing of the plane at 3:37am.

The pilot of the Air India flight AI940, which was on its way from Abu Dhabi to New Delhi, detected a problem with the plane's hydraulic system while it was flying over Pakistani air space. He then contacted the Pakistani authorities and sought permission for an emergency landing.

All 122 passengers and six crew members on board the Airbus 319 aircraft are safe, according to officials.

The pilot was granted permission to land the aircraft at the Nawabshah Airport in Sindh province, southern Pakistan.

"The aircraft was flying over Pakistani air space when the pilot saw a warning light in the cockpit and sought permission to land at the nearest airport which was Nawabshah," an Air India spokesperson said in New Delhi.

As per reports, all three hydraulic systems of the Airbus 319 had failed - one of the rarest of rare incidents in modern jets like the A-320 family of jets - forcing the pilot to land the plane manually.

The stranded passengers were offered lounge facilities by the airport officials but the pilot decided against de-boarding, apparently over security concerns. Moreover, the facilities available at the airport are also limited.

AI940 was originally scheduled to arrive at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 5:15am.