Srinagar-bound flight makes emergency landing in Chandigarh

GoAir’s flight from Delhi to Srinagar on Saturday made an emergency landing at the Chandigarh international airport as a woman passenger developed a medical emergency.

GoAir’s flight from Delhi to Srinagar on Saturday made an emergency landing at the Chandigarh international airport as a woman passenger developed a medical emergency. The passenger was de-boarded and after being treated at local private hospital boarded the flight to Srinagar on Sunday.

According to the airport authority, the GoAir flight that took off from Delhi at 11.30am had to make emergency landing at the Chandigarh airport around 12.15pm after a woman in her mid 40s experienced heart-related problem and her blood pressure dropped drastically.

With the contract of Fortis hospital, Mohali, ending with the Chandigarh airport for rendering medical emergency services on September 25, there is neither any permanent medical emergency service nor an ambulance available at the airport.

On Saturday, the authorities said that the flight made an SOS call to ATC Chandigarh, demanding permission to make an emergency landing after the passenger developed complications. After undergoing treatment for 24 hours, the passenger boarded the GoAir flight to Srinagar on Sunday, an official said.

CHIAL CEO Ajay Bhardwaj said, “We provided an ambulance to the passenger who was taken to the hospital. She was discharged and we helped her to board the flight to Srinagar at 3pm on Sunday.”

He said that tenders for the airport medical inspection room have been floated and they have started receiving the bids to manage and operate the facility as well as provision of 24x7 ambulance services. He said at present, doctors of Mohali civil hospital are on duty and ambulance from a private hospital is at disposal.

Currently, there are two state-sponsored doctors at the airport, who check the temperature of the incoming passengers. They do not have any emergency medical equipment or medicines.

The domestic flight operations had resumed at the airport on May 25 after a gap of nearly three months. Before the lockdown, the airport saw at least 12,000 passengers, both at arrivals and departures, daily. The number has since come down to 3,000 a day. While 44 domestic and two international flights (Sharjah and Dubai) used to arrive and depart from the airport before March 23, only six to eight flights operate daily these days.