Delhi-bound Air India flight aborts take-off at Kochi airport after technical snag

A Delhi-bound Air India flight aborted its takeoff at Cochin International Airport on Sunday evening after a technical snag was detected, officials said.

A spokesperson for Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) told news agency PTI that “a technical issue caused the Air India flight to abort the take off.”

Lok Sabha member and Congress leader Hibi Eden was among the passengers on board the flight, identified as AI504.


“Something unusual with this flight AI 504... it just felt like the flight skid on the runway... and hasn't taken off yet...” He further claimed that “Air India cancelled AI 504 and announced a new flight at 1 am which hasn’t still started boarding. Today is the third flight which has been AOG," he wrote on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle.

In a statement, an Air India spokesperson said, “Flight AI504 operating from Kochi to Delhi has been rescheduled to depart later this evening, necessitated by a technical issue detected during the take-off roll.”

“The cockpit crew decided to discontinue the take-off run following standard operating procedures and brought the aircraft back to the bay for maintenance checks,” the spokesperson added.

According to the CIAL spokesperson, the airline later informed the airport that it was changing the aircraft. The rescheduled departure is now expected at 1 am on Monday.

Eden, the Ernakulam MP, described the incident in a Facebook post: “Something unusual with this flight AI 504... it just felt like the flight skid on the runway... and hasn't taken off yet...”

Air India said it regretted the inconvenience to passengers. “All passengers have disembarked and our ground colleagues in Kochi are extending support to them,” the spokesperson said.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24.com showed that AI504 was to be operated with an Airbus A321 aircraft.

The incident comes amid a spate of recent technical issues reported by Air India. On August 16, the airline cancelled its Milan-Delhi flight after a last-minute maintenance task was identified during pushback.

On August 3, a Delhi-bound flight from Bhubaneswar was cancelled due to high cabin temperature. On July 31, a Boeing 787-9 bound for London had to abort takeoff at Delhi airport and return to bay because of a technical snag.

(With inputs from PTI)