Airbus A380 makes emergency landing at RGIA

HYDERABAD: The world's largest airplane, Airbus A380, made an emergency landing at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here on Sunday due to a technical snag, giving jitters to the 481 passengers on board. Known as the Super Jumbo, the Bangkok-Dubai Emirates Airbus landed safely around 3.45 a.m. The Emirates Airlines made alternative arrangements to send the passengers to their destination on time.RGIA officials told Express that the EK-385 A-380 aircraft was diverted to Hyderabad after its pilots noticed a technical snag in one of its four engines.Initially, they approached the Chennai airport for landing but with the latter refusing to give clearance citing busy traffic on the runway, the pilots contacted the air traffic control staff at Shamshabad.As soon as the RGIA officials received information from the pilots, the Airport Rescue Fire Fighters prepared themselves to ensure safe landing of the aircraft.This is the third time that the world's largest aircraft has made an emergency landing on the runway of the Shamshabad airport.Meanwhile, out of the 481 passengers, 80 flew to Dubai by a regular Emirates flight, Hyderabad-Dubai EK 527, at 10.20 am while the remaining passengers were flown, in two batches, on a special flight an hour later and again on a regular Emirates flight in the evening.A380 AirbusThe Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner designed to reduce travel fatigue.It has 50 percent less cabin noise and its upper and lower decks are connected by two stairways, fore and aft, wide enough to accommodate two passengers side by side.Its maximum certified carrying capacity is 853 passengers in an all-economy-class layout.Emirates is currently the largest operator of the A380 with 16 in service of its 90 on order.