Pathankot flight makes emergency landing at Delhi airport

New Delhi, April 9 

An Alliance Air plane flying to the national capital from Pathankot made an emergency landing on Monday at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here due to a mid-air technical glitch in one of the engines.

The ATR 72 aircraft with 42 passengers landed safely at around 1.45 pm, an Air India official said. Alliance Air is the regional arm of the up-for-sale Air India.

"The right engine of the aircraft suffered a technical glitch when it was on the way to New Delhi from Pathankot. This forced the pilot to seek an emergency landing of the flight, which was carrying 42 passengers on board," the official told PTI.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) declared full emergency at around 13.30 pm for flight AI-836 flying from Pathankot to New Delhi, an airport official said, adding that the flight landed safely on the runway 11/29 at 13:44 pm.

Pathankot became a part of the civil aviation map only last week when Alliance Air started operating its first flight from New Delhi to the border district in Punjab, which shares international borders with Pakistan, under the government's regional connectivity scheme UDAN on April 5.

Alliance Air began operations with an ATR aircraft on the route with three flights -- Monday, Tuesday and Thursday -- in a week. - PTI