India flights: SpiceJet plane catches fire at Delhi airport during maintenance

A fire broke out inside a grounded SpiceJet aircraft during maintenance work at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport Tuesday evening. The aircraft and maintenance personnel are safe, officials said.

"On July 25, SpiceJet Q400 aircraft under maintenance, while carrying out engine ground run at idle power at bay, the AME observed fire warning on #1 Engine. The aircraft fire extinguisher bottle was discharged. As a precaution, a fire brigade was called. Aircraft and maintenance personnel are safe," a SpiceJet spokesperson said.

Aviation watchdog DGCA on Tuesday taken off SpiceJet from its enhanced surveillance regime, a senior official said. The airline, which has been facing multiple headwinds, was placed under enhanced surveillance recently.

The senior DGCA official said that in view of the observations made in the past concerning inadequate maintenance and in view of the incidents during the monsoon season last year, SpiceJet was placed under enhanced surveillance.

"Accordingly 51 spot checks were conducted across 11 locations pan India, on the Boeing 737 and Bombardier DHC Q-400 fleet of aircraft, where in a total 23 aircraft were inspected and 95 observations were made by the DGCA teams," the official said.

The findings were of routine nature and were not considered significant by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

"Suitable maintenance action was taken by the airline to address the findings in accordance with DGCA guidelines. As a consequence, SpiceJet has been taken off the enhanced surveillance regime by DGCA," the official said.

On July 11, PTI had reported about DGCA placing SpiceJet under the enhanced surveillance regime and on that day, the airline refuted any such development.

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