INDIA. Mumbai: The air ambulance ( C-90 aircraft VT-JIL) of the Haryana-based Jet Serve Aviation Private Limited, made a belly landing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport(CSMIA) Mumbai due to technical defect on Thursday night.
The aircraft lost its front wheel and fell on the ground while departing for Hyderabad from runway 32 of Nagpur Airport. Resultantly the aircraft was diverted to Mumbai.
The landing was completed successfully at the Mumbai airport where a full state of emergency was declared for this non-scheduled aircraft. An ambulance and fire brigade was deployed. Besides the foam was put on the runway to safeguard against fire.
The airport sources confirmed that the pilots attempted a ‘belly landing’ without using the landing gear. The medical flight with 5 people including 2 crew, 1 doctor, 1 patient, and 1 paramedic on board was originally travelling from Nagpur to Hyderabad. All escaped unhurt. Now the patient has been admitted to a hospital in Mumbai for the time being.
A Jet Serve Ambulance with a patient on board lost a wheel during takeoff from Nagpur. Showing immense presence of mind Capt Kesari Singh belly-landed the aircraft on foam carpeting in Mumbai. All onboard are safe. Commendable effort by DGCA, India, and CSMA officials the Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh tweeted.
A similar incident had come to light in Canada in 2020 when the wheel of an Air Canada Express flight fell off from the aircraft during takeoff. The aircraft was asked to return to Montreal and managed to make an emergency landing.
In 2012, an Air India plane had to make an emergency landing after the aircraft lost one of the front wheels during takeoff from Silchar airport in Assam. The Guwahati-bound airplane was carrying 48 passengers and a crew of four at the time of the incident.
