“confirmatory” psychoactive drug test results<\/a> are awaited for the chief pilot.<\/p>\nThe Airbus A320, carrying 137 passengers and eight crew, lost around 91m on Aug 4 while flying from Phuket in Thailand to New Delhi, before stabilising and landing safely.<\/p>\n
Air India, in a statement after the plane landed, said it had “experienced a sudden loss of altitude”, adding that it was “fully cooperating with the investigation, and the aircraft manufacturer has also been notified”.<\/p>\n
India’s civil aviation ministry said that the “occurrence has been classified as a Serious Incident and is under investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB)”.<\/p>\n
An Airbus spokesperson said that the jet manufacturer was providing “technical assistance” to Indian investigating authorities.<\/p>\n
Indian newspapers have widely reported that the flight experienced several technical snags just before it experienced a sudden loss in altitude – but neither the carrier, Indian authorities, or Airbus have provided official confirmation.<\/p>\n
“A team of specialists is being dispatched to assist with the investigation,” an Airbus spokesperson said on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Airbus is providing technical assistance to the relevant investigating authorities. We are actively supporting the airline and will provide further information as it becomes available,” they added.<\/p>\n
Air India has said it “cannot comment on any findings or observations related to the investigation”.<\/p>\n
Eight passengers and four cabin crew members were admitted to hospitals after landing in the Indian capital.<\/p>\n
India’s aviation ministry said Sunday that after the flight landed, both pilots were given standard “psychoactive substance screening test”.<\/p>\n
It said that the screening test of the pilot-in-command “indicated a result requiring confirmatory testing”, with samples sent for analysis. The final report is yet to be publicly released.<\/p>\n
Both pilots have been taken off the flying roster during the investigations.<\/p>\n
The probe into the Phuket-New Delhi flight is the latest in a series of challenges for Air India, which has struggled to execute a turnaround following multiple setbacks.<\/p>\n
It has been hit hard by disruptions caused by war in the Middle East crisis.<\/p>\n
The biggest blow to the airline’s image came in June 2025, when Air India Flight 171<\/a> – a London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner – crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground.<\/p>\nThe Indian carrier last week appointed former Ethiopian Airlines chief Tewolde Gebremariam as its new chief executive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI: Airbus is sending experts to New Delhi on Tuesday (Aug 11) to assist investigators probing an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13021],"tags":[34381,4616,326,747],"class_list":["post-64071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-air-india","tag-airbus","tag-aviation","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}