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The Director General of Civil Aviation M Satyavati will visit the Hubballi Airport on Tuesday morning and take stock of the situation arising out of the crash landing of the Spice Jet aircraft on Sunday night. The DGCA was supposed to reach Hubballi on Monday afternoon, but he had to fly to Goa and reach Hubballi by road from Goa. He would be reaching Hubballi on Monday night.
All the 77 passengers and four crew members of Spice Jet SG-1085 had a providential escape on Sunday night after the aircraft in which they were travelling had a rough landing.
As the wheels of the plane which was flying from Bengaluru to Hubballi got deflated on landing, the plane skidded off the runaway and went 100 metres off the runway and subsequently made a rough landing.
The officials stated that due to bad weather, the visibility of the runway for the pilot was nil and it led to crash landing.
However, the technical error that led to this incident would be known only after investigation by a technical team. Civil Aviation Director General too would be part of the technical team.
On getting information, a rescue team and fire fighters were rushed to the spot and they evacuated the passengers within 10 minutes. Police Commissioner Ravindra Prasad stated that the plane was to arrive at Hubballi airport at 7:15 pm, but due to bad weather, the plane was hovering around the airport for more than 20 minutes. The plane had a rough landing and all the passengers have escaped unhurt.
Karnataka Information and·Haj Minister Roshan Baig who was also a passenger in the plane stated that the crew members had alerted the passengers that following heavy rain in Hubballi, the landing would be delayed. However, the pilot Sanjay Saxena had assured that he would be landing safe and asked the passengers not to panic. After landing, smoke was spotted from the left side of the plane and all the passengers were evacuated from the emergency exist.
Along with the minister, three judges of high court-B S Patil, Manohar and Ratnamala too were travelling.
