Air India cancels Bhubaneswar-Delhi flight due to 'high temperature' in aircraft cabin
Mumbai, Aug 3 (PTI): A Delhi-bound Air India flight from Bhubaneswar was cancelled on Sunday due to "high temperature" in the aircraft cabin just prior to its departure for the destination, the airline said in a statement.
Air India did not provide details such as the number of people on board the aircraft, the type of aircraft or even the time the now-grounded flight was scheduled to take off from Bhubaneswar.
This is the second incident of an Air India flight confronting a technical glitch in a day.
This comes amid the aviation safety regulator DGCA detecting over 100 violations and observations, with some of them identified as critical safety risks, during an audit of the Tata Group-run private carrier, and one of its Boeing 787-8 plane operating its London Gatwick flight crashing on a medical college within minutes of its take-off on June 12, killing 241 people on board and 19 on ground.
"Flight AI500 scheduled to operate from Bhubaneswar to Delhi on August 3 has been cancelled due to a technical issue causing high cabin temperature on ground prior to the departure," Air India said in a statement.
"Our airport team in Bhubaneswar is assisting the impacted passengers with alternative arrangements to fly them to their destination to Delhi. We regret the inconvenience caused," the airline said.
The flight, according to flight tracking website flightradar24.com, was to be operated by an Airbus A321 aircraft at its scheduled time of 12.35 pm, and land in Delhi at 2.55 pm.
Earlier in the day, Air India said its flight AI349 scheduled to operate from Singapore to Chennai was cancelled due to a maintenance task identified prior to departure, which required additional time for rectification.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation last week detected around 100 violations and observations related to Air India's training, crew's rest and duty period norms, and airfield qualification, among others, sources had said.
Of these, as many as seven have been identified as Level-1 violations, which are considered critical safety risks and require immediate corrective action by the air operator, they had said.
An online pan-India survey last month had stated that around 76 per cent of respondents opined that many airlines in India are spending more on publicity than safety. The online survey conducted by LocalCircles revealed that as many as 64 per cent of these respondents had experienced at least one rough flight in the last three years, involving a difficult takeoff, landing, or inflight situation.
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LS passes bill to open up nuclear sector for private participation
New Delhi (PTI): Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the nuclear energy bill with Union minister Jitendra Singh asserting that it would help India achieve its target of 100 GW atomic energy generation by 2047.
The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill, which seeks to open the tightly-controlled civil nuclear sector for private participation, was passed by voice vote amid a walkout by the opposition.
Singh termed the bill a "milestone legislation" that will give a new direction to the country's developmental journey.
"India's role in geopolitics is increasing. If we have to be a global player, we have to follow global benchmarks and global strategies. The world is moving towards clean energy. We too have set a target of 100 GW of nuclear energy capacity by 2047," he said.
The opposition contended that the bill diluted provisions of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 that passed on the liability for a nuclear incident on to the suppliers of nuclear equipment.
