‘Airplane part’ falls in Delhi’s Shankar Vihar

A broken metal piece was recovered from a city resident which officials said is suspected to be a part of an aircraft flying above her house located in Shankar Vihar, south Delhi, on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, around the same time, authorities at the city’s Indira Gandhi International Airport reported that a Bahrain-bound Air India Express flight made an emergency landing due to an “engine issue”.
The Delhi Police and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Wednesday said they will now be investigating if the metal pieces fell from the same airplane.
On Tuesday, at around 9.28pm, police said that they received a call from the woman, an Army officer, claiming that she saw metal pieces falling from the sky. On reaching her house, located near Delhi Cantonment, the woman produced a small black-coloured metal piece and said it fell from a plane which was passing by, a senior police officer said. Following this, the air traffic control room was informed. The officer added that the ATC conducted further enquiry and found that an Air India Express flight to Bahrain had passed around the same time.
The flight, however, made an emergency landing at 9.10pm, police said. “We were told that the crew members detected some fault in the engine… The caller had called after the landing (few minutes after the pieces fell on her house). Whether the metal pieces belong to the above aircraft or not will be determined by the technical team,” added the senior officer.
Airport authorities also confirmed that the flight made an emergency landing due to an engine issue. The crew was also questioned about the metal pieces. The airline was yet to confirm if the metal pieces were part of the aircraft.
Meanwhile, HT reached out to the woman who refused to be named, and said she had seen the pieces falling from the plane and had told everything to the authorities.
A spokesperson from Air India Express told HT, “The flight encountered an engine issue after take-off from Delhi. The failure was managed in accordance with laid-down procedures, and a precautionary landing was conducted at Delhi. The matter… is currently under investigation. We are aware of reports of metal pieces being found at Shankar Vihar. At this time, we cannot confirm if these metal pieces are from our aircraft. The investigation is ongoing to establish the facts.” A senior DGCA officer said they are investigating the matter to ascertain the sequence of events.
DCP Rohit Meena (southwest) said, “Inspection report of aircraft is pending. Only after the report is submitted we will get to know that something was missing from the aircraft…”