Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh): A major accident was narrowly avoided at Gwalior Airport on Saturday when an Air India Express Boeing 474 flight from Bengaluru faced a technical snag during landing.
The flight usually lands at 2 pm, but this time, as it touched the runway, the aircraft lost balance and tilted to one side. This caused panic among the 150 passengers on board.
Passengers said the plane shook violently during landing which forced the pilot to take off again. After some time, the aircraft attempted a second landing, but even then, its speed was unusually high, and it couldn’t land.
KM Ojha, a passenger seated in the front, said, “Today is Krishna Janmashtami, and it is only by God’s grace that we survived. The landing was extremely risky, the plane hit the ground at high speed, and a crash was narrowly averted.”
He added that he would cancel his return ticket and demanded strict action against those responsible.
Another passenger, Ashutosh Kulshreshtha, recalled that as soon as the plane touched the runway, it shook so hard that passengers screamed in fear.
After the second landing, when they finally de-boarded, passengers complained to airport authorities about the technical fault.
They also alleged that officials were initially unresponsive and only later registered a complaint to be forwarded to Air India.
An Air India Express Spokesperson said, “One of our aircraft conducted a go around followed by a safe and uneventful landing at Gwalior. Crew are trained to carry out a go around as a precautionary measure when required. The aircraft subsequently operated as scheduled.”
