IndiGo Airbus A320's engine started vibrating for a fraction of a second. The IndiGo flight 6E-859 had taken off from Delhi at 7:30 pm. There was a caution message indicated to the pilot en route. The passengers were accommodated on an alternate flight for their onward journey. The flight landed at Jaipur airport around 8.30 pm.
In a statement, the airline said, "IndiGo flight 6E-859, operating between Delhi and Vadodara, was diverted to Jaipur on 14 July 2022. There was a caution message indicated to the pilot enroute."
"As a precaution, the pilot diverted the aircraft to Jaipur for further checks. The passengers were accommodated on an alternate aircraft for their onward journey," it added.
IndiGo's competitor SpiceJet is under regulatory scanner right now. On July 6, the DGCA issued a show-cause notice to SpiceJet following at least eight incidents of technical malfunction in its aircraft since June 19.
The aviation regulator said the budget carrier had "failed" to establish safe, efficient, and reliable air services.
It all started in April 2022 when the aviation watchdog the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had restrained 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 Max aircraft, after finding they were not properly trained.
Those pilots were trained on a faulty simulator, and the aviation regulator asked the airline to retrain the pilots, besides slapping a fine of ₹10 lakh.
In early May, 11 passengers on board its flight from Mumbai to Durgapur in West Bengal were injured in severe turbulence and were hospitalised. Two of them were put into intensive care units (ICU). The airline had then maintained that the seat belt sign was on when the aircraft encountered turbulence and several announcements for the same were also made.
In the later part of May, SpiceJet systems had faced an attempted ransomware attack that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures, while several passengers had complained about the poor services.
On May 28, the pilots on a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai to Gorakhpur decided to fly back to Mumbai after a windshield crack was observed mid-air.
The incident which grabbed much of the eyeballs was when a Delhi-bound SpiceJet aircraft made an emergency landing at Patna airport on June 19, after there were reports of a technical glitch that ignited fire on the plane.
On the same day itself, a Jabalpur-bound SpiceJet flight landed back at the Delhi Airport after it failed to regain the cabin pressure differential even after attaining a height of 6,000 feet.
Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday showed his concerns over recent incidents related to SpiceJet and said, "Passenger safety is paramount. Even the smallest error hindering safety will be thoroughly investigated and course-corrected."
Facing the show cause notice, SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said that they are running "a safe airline for the past 15 years" and that "one or two incidents being highlighted in media doesn't mean any airline is unsafe".
