IndiGo plane enroute to Srinagar lands in Varanasi after fuel leak alert; all 166 passengers safe
New Delhi (PTI): An IndiGo plane enroute to Srinagar from Kolkata landed at the Varanasi airport on Wednesday evening following a reported fuel leak, officials said.
Sources said malfunctioning of a sensor in the aircraft led to a false alarm of fuel leakage, following which the plane landed in Varanasi.
However, according to the Gomti Zone Police, the IndiGo flight 6E-6961 was diverted to Varanasi after the pilot detected a fuel leakage mid-air.
Assessing the gravity of the situation, the pilot immediately contacted Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Varanasi and sought permission for an emergency landing, they said.
The aircraft safely landed the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport at 4.10 pm, police said.
All 166 passengers on board were reported to be safe and were escorted to the arrival hall soon after landing, they said.
A technical team is inspecting the aircraft to identify and fix the fault.
Authorities said the situation is "completely normal and under control."
"IndiGo flight 6E 6961, operating from Kolkata to Srinagar, made a precautionary landing at Varanasi airport due to a suspected technical issue. As a safety measure, the aircraft has been grounded for necessary checks, and an alternate aircraft has been arranged to continue the journey," the airline said in a statement.
The flight was operated with A320 neo aircraft, as per information available on flight tracking website Flightradar24.com.
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Ex-bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal sworn in as CIC; eight new information commissioners take oath
New Delhi (PTI): After a gap of nine years, transparency watchdog Central Information Commission attained its full strength with the appointment of former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal and eight other information commissioners, who took the oath of office on Monday.
A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week recommended their names for the appointment.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Goyal as the chief information commissioner (CIC) at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, her office said in a communique.
The event was attended by Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, among others.
Goyal is a 1990-batch (retired) IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. He superannuated as secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31.
He has also served as secretary (border management) in the Home Ministry and held key posts both at the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13.
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The Commission is headed by a CIC and can have a maximum of 10 information commissioners. With the new appointments, the Commission attained its full strength after a gap of over nine years, according to transparency activists.
In the presence of two incumbent Information Commissioners, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Goyal administered the oath of office to eight new appointees at the swearing-in ceremony.
They included former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS officer Swagat Das -- who held key posts in the Intelligence Bureau, Home Ministry and Cabinet Secretariat, among others -- Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena and ex-Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi.
Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and former Indian Legal Service officer Sudha Rani Relangi, have also been sworn in as information commissioners.
Relangi has also worked as the director of prosecution, Central Bureau of Investigation and joint secretary and legislative counsel in the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The names of the CIC and eight information commissioners were cleared during the meeting of the Modi-led committee comprising Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
