Air India Express flight IX611 struck an ILS lighting tower and damaged a nearby brick wall at the departure end of RWY 27 in Trichy on departure early the morning of 12 October local time. The aircraft climbed to cruising altitude for 3 hours before safely diverting to Mumbai. No injuries have been reported.

Based on ADS-B data received from the aircraft, the flight bound for Dubai was not yet airborne at the end of the runway. Based on processing of granular ADS-B data, the last signal received from the aircraft on the ground was at 19:49:11.550 UTC, position 10.76525, 78.70596 at a ground speed of 155 kts.

The next signal received from IX611, at 19:49:22.538, reported a calibrated altitude of 625 ft, 161 kts ground speed from position 10.7644, 78.69791.

IX611 climbed for 31 minutes after departure to a cruising altitude of 36,000 ft and stayed at FL360 or FL350 for 3 hr 16 min, before descending to its diversion airport in Mumbai. The exact point of diversion is unknown due to lack of coverage.

Damage to the aircraft

The aircraft appears to have sustained substantial damage to the underside of the fuselage.

Air India Trichy pics coming in. Severe Boeing 737 damage pic.twitter.com/SJVGLiEQvx — Tarun Shukla (@shukla_tarun) October 12, 2018

The aircraft

IX611 was operated by Air India Express 737-800 registered VT-AYD. The aircraft was delivered to the airline in December 2009.

Download Flightradar24 Data

Flightradar24 data related to this flight is available for download. The granular CSV file contains more frequent position reports and additional data fields than the basic CSV.

Download the IX611 basic CSV

Download the IX611 granular CSV file

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