SpiceJet Nashik-bound flight turns midway to Delhi after ‘autopilot’ snag

New Delhi: SpiceJet airline’s Boeing-737 on Thursday returned to Delhi after taking off from Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Reportedly, an aircraft VT-SLP of SpiceJet, that took off for Nashik in Maharashtra from New Delhi airport returned after experiencing a malfunction in the flight’s autopilot system informed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official. “SpiceJet B737 aircraft VT-SLP, operating flight SG-8363 (Delhi-Nashik) on Thursday was involved in an air turnback due to an autopilot snag,” he said.

However, all the passengers including the cabin crew are safe as the flight landed back safely at the airport.

“On September 1, 2022, SpiceJet B737 aircraft scheduled to operate from Delhi to Nashik returned to Delhi after the flight crew experienced a malfunction with the AutoPilot system. The aircraft made a normal landing at Delhi and passengers disembarked normally,” said SpiceJet Spokesperson.

Meanwhile, SpiceJet has been going through a highly turbulent phase in recent times on account of several glitches and a non-adherence to mandated guidelines in regard to the training of some pilots.

It all started in April 2022 when the aviation watchdog the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) restrained 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 Max aircraft, after finding they were not properly trained.

Those pilots were trained on a faulty simulator, and the aviation regulator asked the airline to retrain the pilots, besides slapping a fine of Rs 10 lakh.

Multiple incidents were reported this year when SpiceJet and other carrier’s aircraft either turned back to their originating station or continued landing at the destination with degraded safety margins

Civil aviation regulator DGCA has recently ordered SpiceJet to operate a maximum of 50 per cent of its flights for eight weeks after several of its planes reported technical malfunctions.

Upon having reported repeated snags, civil aviation regulator Director General of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Arun Kumar recently told ANI aircraft systems are reasonably robust and do have multiple redundancies but component failures do not imply that it is compromising the safety of the passengers.