Guwahati, June 10
All the 46 passengers and crew members on board an Air India aircraft travelling from Silchar in South Assam to Guwahati landed safely under emergency condition in Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi International Airport here, thanks to the deft handling of the adverse situation by the pilot.

There were two cockpit crew, two cabin crew and an engineer on board the flight, besides the passengers. No one was injured in the emergency landing. An airline source informed that the ATR 9760 flight lost one of its nose wheels just after take-off from Silchar airport at around 9.30 am.

It was noticed by the ground staff in Silchar airport and an alarm was raised at both the airports.

Captain Urmila Yadav, however, managed to make a safe emergency landing in Guwahati airport after the airport authority got all evacuation and fire-fighting personnel ready on the ground.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi spoke to pilot Captain Urmila Yadav over the phone. He thanked her and the co-pilot Yashu for landing the flight safely. “Hats off to you and your co-pilot for your courageous act which saved the precious lives of the passengers,” Gogoi told her.

“The aircraft hovered over Guwahati airport for about an hour while preparing for emergency landing with just one nose wheel.

“We realised that something was seriously wrong when one of the cabin crew started giving safety demonstration for the second time minutes before the scheduled arrival at Guwahati airport.

“On being asked, she said some emergency situation was being anticipated,” said Sumanta Chaliha, noted litterateur and an engineer in Assam Agriculture University who was sitting on seat 4B in the aircraft.