Qantas flight dumps fuel in Arabian Sea

A Qantas Airways jumbo aircraft, with hundred of passengers on board, developed a snag mid-air on Friday morning, while it was flying through the city skies.

A Qantas Airways jumbo aircraft, with hundred of passengers on board, developed a snag mid-air on Friday morning, while it was flying through the city skies.

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When the flight, from Singapore to London, was passing by the city, the pilot realised that there was a problem with one of the engines.

Sources from the Mumbai airport said the pilot approached the city air traffic control (ATC) tower, to seek permission to dump fuel in the Arabian Sea. “Dumping fuel is a routine precautionary measure during a mid-air emergency. The ATC guided the pilots over the sea as per the standard operating procedure,” a senior ATC official said, requesting anonymity.

After dumping fuel, the aircraft headed towards Dubai, where it made a safe emergency landing. Officials added that adequate fuel was saved for the flight to reach Dubai.

The ATC slowed movement of other city-bound planes, by separating the horizontal distance between them, owing to the emergency, but that did not impact flight schedules, the official added.

The aircraft being used for the flight was an Airbus A380, the biggest civilian plane in the world. ATC sources said that there have frequent instances of mid-air snags in A380s in the past few months.