india

Updated: Nov 01, 2019 11:58 IST

160 passengers to Kuwait had a harrowing time after a fire alarm on the IndiGo flight went off, moments after take-off, forcing it to return to the Chennai international airport during the small hours on Friday. The smoke warning alarm, indicating fire in the rear-cargo area, turned out to be false, said the airlines .

Pilots flying IndiGo 6E-1751 to Kuwait declared full emergency after detecting smoke warning, minutes after the flight’s take-off from Chennai at 1:30 am on Friday. The flight landed back safely in Chennai at 2 am.

“IndiGo aircraft VT-IJJ departed for Kuwait at 1.30 am and was forced to turn back due to cargo smoke warning. After noticing the alarm, pilots declared a full emergency and landed the flight safely at Chennai airport by 2 AM,” said officials familiar with the developments.

An inspection was carried out after the passengers were deplaned from the Airbus A320 model aircraft and the alarm was found to have gone off erroneously.

“There was no evidence of smoke in the aft cargo, which only had passenger baggage. During the technical inspection, two smoke detectors were found to be faulty,” said the official quoted above.

An IndiGo spokesperson, who didn’t elaborate, also said the fire alarm was false.

“After take-off from Chennai, the pilot observed a momentary message about the smoke detector in the aft cargo compartment. Therefore, he returned to Chennai. After reaching Chennai airport, the alarm was confirmed to be a false message,” the spokesperson said.

All passengers were safe and a departmental probe had been ordered into the incident, said sources.