Mid-air turbulenece delays aircraft landing

Dubai, Oct 17: An Air-India flight landed at Saudi Arabia's Jeddah's King Abdul Aziz International Airport behind schedule on Sunday night following an mid-air turbulence which left eight passengers and two crew injured.

About 69 passengers and 10 crew members were on board the Airbus 310 Bombay-Hyderabad-Jeddah flight, which landed here about 10 minutes behind schedule.

''As soon as we received the message, we alerted the local airport authorities and our agents,'' T Vijayakumar, Air-India's customer relations and senior airport manager, told Arab News yesterday.

He said while flying over Muscat around 1800 hrs local time, the plane suddenly entered an air pocket that prompted the captain to lower the altitude. It was so sudden that the captain had no time to alert the passengers, the official added.

The seatbelt sign was immediately switched on, but passengers who were mostly in or around the toilets were hurt. All of them suffered minor injures, except one 60-year-old woman who developed pain in her hip.

''I was coming out of the toilet when I fell down due to the turbulence and felt severe pain in my hip,'' said Zahirunnisa, who was later admitted to Jeddah Clinic Hospital at Al-Kandarah on Old Airport Street.

The flight made a return journey to Bombay two hours behind schedule. It left Jeddah at 1155 hrs local time picking another 129 passangers from here after airport authorities and Air-India engineers made a thorough inspection of the aircraft certifying its airworthiness.

UNI