DGCA Orders Inquiry As 3 Air India Aircraft Grounded After Being Struck By Runaway Airport Gear

New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has launched a formal investigation into a tarmac accident at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport that left three parked Air India aircraft damaged.

The incident occurred during a bout of severe, unexpected weather that swept across the National Capital Region. Winds gusting up to 80 kilometres per hour, accompanied by heavy rain, swept through the airport's Terminal 2 apron area. 

The sheer force of the storm caught ground teams off guard, loosening heavy ground support equipment (GSE), including a massive boarding stepladder and a maintenance trestle, and sending them rolling freely across the tarmac.

Chain Reaction on the Tarmac

A video circulating on social media caught the alarming moment the ground equipment turned into runaway projectiles. 

Despite airport workers rushing onto the flooded tarmac to intercept the rolling machinery, the equipment violently collided with three narrow-body Air India Airbus A320 aircraft parked in adjacent bays.

The structural impacts caused varying degrees of structural compromise to the planes; two of the aircraft sustained body scrapes and wing impacts from the shifting ground support structures.

The third aircraft suffered direct damage to its right-hand sliding cockpit window frame, forcing engineers to withdraw it from operation.

According to airport officials, the ground equipment involved belonged to Air India Engineering and IndiGo. 

A spokesperson from IndiGo noted that while their ground gear had been lashed down according to standard protocol, the unexpected velocity of the storm gusts snapped the restraints.

Regulators Scrutinise Safety Protocols

All three aircraft were immediately grounded for inspections of structural integrity and maintenance. 

While two of the narrow-body planes are expected to return to commercial service shortly, the third aircraft sustained more complex damage and will require prolonged repairs. 

Fortunately, no ground crew or airline staff sustained injuries during the chaotic episode.

The DGCA’s probe is focusing heavily on whether proper ground safety protocols and tying down procedures were short-circuited. 

Conversely, sources within the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) indicated that the Air Traffic Control (ATC) and weather monitoring stations had failed to issue a timely alert about the sudden micro-storm, depriving ground teams of the critical window needed to chain down all secondary airport gear.

The regulatory investigation aims to map accountability for the asset damage and update safety mandates about securing terminal equipment during sudden, severe weather shifts.

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