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IndiGo aircraft's tail touches runway during landing at Chennai airport; DGCA launches probe
‘The aircraft is grounded and will be back in operations post necessary repairs and clearance,’ the airlines said.
An IndiGo Airbus A321 aircraft's tail touched the runway during landing at Chennai airport on March 8, ANI reported on Saturday, citing a statement from the airline.
"The aircraft is grounded and will be back in operations post necessary repairs and clearance," the statement from Indigo said.
The airline also apologised to the passengers and stated that the safety of the customers, crew, and aircraft remains its top priority.
“At IndiGo, the safety of our customers, crew, and aircraft is our top priority. We operate with the highest standards of safety,” the statement added, according to ANI. "We regret any inconvenience caused to our customers due to subsequent cancellations due to this grounding."
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Following the incident, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said that it was probing the tail strike incident.
In September last year, a Bengaluru-bound plane suffered a tail strike incident. The incident occurred with an IndiGo A321 aircraft, which was operating a flight from Delhi to Bengaluru. The flight crew involved in the incident was de-rostered as part of the investigation.
In 2023, the DGCA imposed a penalty of ₹30 lakh on IndiGo due to four tail strikes incidents in a time period of six months, reported ANI.
During an audit of those incidents, the civil aviation regulator found deficiencies in IndiGo's training and engineering procedure during audits of those incidents.
During the special audit, "certain systemic deficiencies" were observed in Indigo Airlines' documentation pertaining to operations/training procedures and engineering procedures.
