Indigo grounds plane bound for Bengaluru

Mumbai: A Bengaluru bound Indigo airlines flight (Airbus A320 Neo) from Bhubaneswar, which was forced to return following high engine vibrations on September 20, has now been grounded. 

Since their induction in March last year, the A320 neo planes, powered by Pratt & Whitney engines, have been facing glitches at regular intervals. 

The airline currently has 140 A320s, of which 23 are A320 Neos.  Though the US engine maker has started supplying new engines to the airline, which has helped it put some of the grounded planes back into flying, many of such planes remain out of operations. 

Last week, a senior official at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had said that as many as six A320 neo planes of IndiGo were on ground and awaiting engine replacement. 

"On September 20, IndiGo flight 6E-3869, which took-off at 8.50 pm for Bengaluru from Bhubaneswar, was diverted back to Bhubaneswar and made an emergency landing due to the high vibrations in one of the engines," an official said.

“The vibrations were caused due to the sudden rise in the exhaust gas temperature of an internal combustion engine. As the increased temperature could have burnt other engine components, the pilot was forced to return the flight back to Bhubaneswar," the official said. The airline had taken off nine A320 Neos from its fleet in the June quarter owing to engine issues. The grounding of these planes had forced IndiGo to cancel over 600 flights between late June and early July.