Nose wheel of GoAir flight goes missing!!

New Delhi, Oct 10: Passengers of the GoAir flight were panic-struck on Thursday, Oct 9 evening when the pilot of the flight found that the nose wheel of the flight was missing. The Delhi-Mumbai flight with 125 passengers onboard was averted at the Delhi Airport. Emergency had been declared at the Delhi airport in the evening and the main runway was cleared for the safe landing of the plane. Sources at the airport said, "One of the two nose wheels, which is a vital equipment to an aircraft, was missing. All passengers have safely left the plane."

In a statement the company said, “Go Air flight number 456 from Mumbai to Delhi made an emergency landing at Delhi airport. The aircraft, a new Airbus A320 delivered in November 2007, has landed safely. The reason for the technical problem will be investigated in cooperation with the agencies involved and the manufacturer."

"The pilot made a pass over the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower for visual verification, and was told that the nosewheel was stuck. He rectified the problem while the craft hovered over Delhi for more than 15 minutes," V Somasundaram, executive director of the Airtports Authority of India who is also in charge of the ATC operations at IGI Airport, Delhi, told a news agency.

"Aircraft are very well designed and secured to deal with such eventualities. Even if there is a problem in landing gears, it can be rectified mid-air in most of the cases," says a senior pilot of a private airline.

On July 26, a major air accident was averted at Delhi airport when a Jet Airways flight with Union Minister Sharad Pawar on board returned to Delhi airport safely after it was found that a rear door was not locked properly.

OneIndia News