All the 183 passengers, including 14 crew members, of Air India's Bangkok-Delhi flight had a miraculous escape on Monday morning when the aircraft developed problems in its under-carriage and landed in full emergency conditions in Delhi.
Just before landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, the pilot of the Airbus A-310 received an "unsafe warning" about the problems in its under-carriage and the landing gear, sources said.
The pilot then alerted the Air Traffic Control, which asked him to land on the main runway in full emergency conditions.
After it landed on the main runway, it could not move on to the taxi way to clear the main runway.
The passengers and the baggage were offloaded on the main runway itself.
As soon as the tractor tried to tow it away, the nose-wheel collapsed and the plane got stuck on the main runway.
Air India is now flying in heavy lift equipment from Mumbai and the main runway is likely to be closed till 1500 hours.
The secondary runway is being used for flight operations.
"In fact, when the aircraft landed, it was an emergency landing but thanks to the pilot, he did an absolutely safe landing," Venkat, Air India's Public Relations chief, said.
"The passengers were brought down through stairs and when the aircraft was towed to a hangar through the taxi track the land gear collapsed," he said.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Air India will hold an inquiry into the incident.
