Emergency landing averts major accident in Agartala

Agartala, July 3 (UNI) Seven people, including a ten-month-old child, fell ill last night following a sudden fall of air pressure in a Guwahati-bound ATR-50 aircraft, which forced the pilot to retreat and make emergency landing at Agartala Airport.

Indian sources here today said the passengers had staged a noisy demonstration against the airport authority and demanded to ensure arrival to their respective final destinations before lunch.

The officials assured them to make the earliest possible arrangement for their departure.

According to the cabin crew, failure of hydraulic system and power disruption inside the craft were the main reasons of pressure fall and disorder in ventilation system but a major accident was averted.

The plane made an emergency landing of CD 2755 ATR at around 2135 hrs in Agartala Airport after about one hour of the flight take off from the same airport to Guwahati.

''We were compelled to bring back the flight to Agartala following the detection of mechanical defects. The craft moved into an air pocket, which had complicated the ventilation system and the passengers started running inside the flight due to pressure fall,'' said a senior official of the Airport Authority of India (AAI).

The passengers complained that the flight was scheduled for departure at 1625 hrs from Agartala to Kolkata but finally it took off at 2017 hrs with 25 passengers. They began to feel uneasy within 15 minutes of departure, as severe bumping was felt and all lights went off suddenly.

''The cabin crew was reluctant even after we complained about our respiratory problems,'' the passengers alleged, adding seven of them, including a ten-month-old Pallabi, were taken ill due to severe nose bleeding.

The sick passengers were treated in different hospitals of Agartala.

Agartala Airport Duty Officer R K Sharma, who was gheraoed by the passengers till 2300 hrs at night, could only be freed after Airport Director K Karmakar assured them that the authority would take care of all inconvenience.

AAI sources, however, stated that a similar incident took place with the same Agartala-bound flight in Dum Dum Airport, Kolkata, last week and yesterday it opened wings for the first time after due repairing following that incident.

The Alliance Air, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Indian Airlines, at present operates 70 ATR flights every day in the region and four flights had been stranded at airports for past few days following technical snag.

The ATR was introduced only for North-eastern states and the North East Council provides Rs 35 crore annually to keep the ATRs airborne, but the IA authority is operating the flights even on the Kolkata route regularly.

About 10 ATR planes are flying for Kolkata from different stations of the region.

The insufficient surface communication network has increased passenger pressures on air route in the region day by day.

Apart from Indian and its subsidiary ATR-50 aircraft, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Indigo and Air Deccan are operating in the region now.

The private airlines are operating 42 flights daily in Guwahati, Agartala, Imphal, Bagdogra and Jorhat.

However, Shillong, Kohima and Itanagar are yet to be linked by air.

A decade ago, 18 towns, including the far-flung Zero, Rapanzo, Passighat, Along, Tezu, Kamalpur, Kailashahar, Rupasi and Lilabari were on the air map but most of the airports are now abandoned.

Meanwhile, the North Eastern Council (NEC) had mulled to launch air connectivity, exclusively for the North-eastern states, including Sikkim, and the feasibility study of the proposed project had been done by the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) with poor performance of Indian and it's subsidiary airliner.

UNI