Kolkata: Passengers of a Turkish Airlines plane, which made an emergency landing at Kolkata Airport on Wednesday afternoon after the pilot declared a fire in the right engine, will fly off in a replacement aircraft at 6 am tomorrow, an official said.
The flight was on its way to Istanbul from Kathmandu, the Civil Aviation Ministry said a statement.
A Kolkata airport official said passengers will be taken en route to their destination in another aircraft on Thursday morning.
The replacement aircraft will arrive at the NSCBI Airport here at 4 am and fly off with the passengers at 6 am, he said.
“All the passengers and crew, and the captain have been shifted to a hotel,” the official said.
The distressed Airbus A330-300, having flight number THY 727, took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport with 236 passengers on board, including 11 crew members, around 1.15 pm.
The pilot reported the malfunction in one of the two engines during the climb, an official said.
“The flight declared PAN PAN, an international radio distress signal, due to the right engine on fire and requested to divert to Kolkata at 1.38 pm with one engine failure,” the ministry statement said.
The plane landed at the NSCBI Airport with full emergency shortly after 2.30 pm, while the fire in the engine was brought under control at 1.51 pm, it added, indicating that the flames were doused during the flight itself.
Officials at the NSCBI international airport here said no reports of injury to passengers were received.
Modern multi-engine jets are engineered to fly, climb, and land safely with only one engine operating, an airport official said.
They are also equipped with sophisticated, built-in fire detection and extinguishing systems designed to control and suppress fires in critical areas, he added.
