Indian flight lands in Pakistan after 'technical defect'

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) - A passenger plane of India's Indigo airlines was diverted to the Pakistani city of Karachi on Sunday morning while en route from the UAE to Hyderabad after the pilot observed a technical fault, the carrier said in a statement.

"IndiGo flight 6E-1406, operating from Sharjah to Hyderabad was diverted to Karachi. The pilot observed a technical defect. Necessary procedures were followed and as a precaution, the aircraft was diverted to Karachi," the company said in a statement.

An additional flight is on its way to Karachi to fly its passengers to Hyderabad.

This is the second such case this month, in which an Indian passenger flight was diverted to Pakistan.

On July 5, a passenger plane of India's Spice Jet Airlines bound for Dubai was diverted to Karachi due to a malfunctioning indicator light.

In March, a Qatar Airways flight from New Delhi to Doha was forced to make an emergency landing in Karachi after it developed a "technical fault."

Presently, there are no direct flights operating between India and Pakistan, as relations between the two countries plummeted to a new low after August 2019, when India scrapped the longstanding special status of Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in Islamabad downgrading its diplomatic ties with New Delhi.