A total of 1,365 foreign planes made unscheduled landings at 14 domestic airports in the country since January, 2012, driven by bad weather, medical emergency, technical glitches and bomb threats, among others, Parliament was informed today.
Of these, the maximum number of flights were diverted to Kolkata airport with 1,117 foreign planes making an unscheduled landing there in the over three-and-a-half years between January, 2012, to July, 2015 (till date), Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mahesh Sharma, told Rajya Sabha.
The number of foreign aircraft diverted to Lucknow was 139 during this period. The number of flights diverted to Mumbai and Delhi airports stood at 64 and 63, respectively, he said.
The other airports where foreign planes have made unscheduled landings are Agartala, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram and Varansi, the minister said.
The unscheduled landings are due to diversion of flights on account of bad weather at the destination, medical emergency, aircraft emergency, technical reason and bomb threats, he said.
However, no expenditure is incurred by the government or the airport operator on this account, Sharma added.
