According to official sources, the Airbus A-320-200 was about to take off from Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport here for Srinagar this afternoon when the pilot noticed the snag.
Instead of taking off, the pilot applied emergency brakes which resulted in bursting of one of the tyres of the plane at the airport, located 10,682 feet above sea level, the sources said.
The plane, which is modified for flying to Leh, was taxied to a parallel runway and all the passengers were later flown in another plane that was flown from Delhi, the sources said.
The passengers of AI-448 later arrived at Srinagar airport at 1500 hours while a technical team of Air India attended to the snag in the aircraft here, they said.
