An IndiGo Airbus A320neo diverted to Lucknow on Tuesday evening after a smoke warning triggered in the aircraft’s cargo hold, prompting the airport to launch its full emergency response.
Flight 6E6504 had departed Agartala bound for Delhi carrying 103 passengers and six crew members.
The crew received the cargo smoke indication while en route and elected to divert rather than continue toward the capital.
The aircraft touched down safely at Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport in Lucknow at 6:29 pm local time.
Emergency Teams Meet The Aircraft at Lucknow…
Lucknow Airport activated its full emergency preparedness plan as soon as controllers were notified of the diversion.
Fire and rescue crews, ambulances, medical staff, security officers and terminal support teams were all positioned before the aircraft arrived, a standard precaution whenever a crew reports a smoke or fire indication regardless of whether flames are ever confirmed.
The aircraft was met on the runway and escorted clear so passengers could disembark under close supervision.
There is no indication in the information released so far that smoke or fire was actually found on board, and IndiGo has treated the event as a precautionary diversion rather than a confirmed cargo fire.
A technical inspection would typically follow before the aircraft returns to service.
The Aircraft Involved
Flight data places the aircraft involved in the Lucknow emergency as an Airbus A320-251N registered VT-ISY, a relatively young member of IndiGo’s fleet.
The airframe, carrying manufacturer serial number 10586, first flew on 2 August 2021 and wore the test registration F-WWBN before delivery.
It was built at Airbus’s Toulouse site and handed to IndiGo on 1 September 2021, entering commercial service just over two weeks later on 18 September 2021.
At the time of the diversion the aircraft was five years old.
The jet is leased from AerCap, having previously been financed through GECAS before that portfolio transferred in November 2021.
It flies in a single class configuration seating 186 passengers and is powered by two CFM International LEAP-1A26 engines, the powerplant fitted across most of IndiGo’s A320neo family.
The aircraft was ferried from Toulouse to Delhi over 1 and 2 September 2021 on delivery.
Flight tracking data shows the diverted sector had departed Agartala shortly after 4:45 pm local time before turning toward Lucknow.
Part Of A Wider Pattern At Lucknow
Tuesday’s diversion is the second cargo hold smoke alert to send an aircraft into Lucknow this month.
On 3 September, an Air India Express Boeing operating flight IX1253 from Varanasi to Delhi made an almost identical precautionary landing after its own cargo smoke alarm activated shortly after departure.
That aircraft, carrying 155 passengers, landed at 8:52 am and had all occupants off the aircraft within ten minutes as fire crews and technical staff attended the scene.
Air India Express confirmed afterwards that initial checks found no evidence of smoke or fire, with the jet moved to a hangar for a fuller inspection while investigators worked to identify the fault behind the alarm.
The airline arranged refreshments and a replacement aircraft to continue the journey to Delhi.
Two cargo smoke warnings triggering diversions into the same airport within a fortnight is a notable cluster, even though both cases so far appear to be false alarms rather than genuine fires.
Cargo hold smoke detectors are designed to be highly sensitive given the catastrophic risk a genuine hold fire poses, so isolated false triggers are not unusual.
Whether these two events share a common cause, or are simply coincidence involving two different operators and aircraft types, will depend on what each airline’s technical investigation ultimately finds.
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