DUBAI — An Emirates jet made an emergency landing at Hyderabad. The plane flying from Bangkok to Dubai landed safely at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport early Sunday. All 410 passengers on board the A380 superjumbo were safe and had been ferried to their destination in batches.
In a statement, an airline spokesperson said: “Emirates can confirm flight EK 385 and A380 aircraft from Bangkok to Dubai was diverted to Hyderabad international airport today at 0345 hours due to a technical snag in the aircraft.’’
The airline said the 410 passengers were disembarked safely. ‘‘205 passengers departed on EK 527, a Boeing 777 aircraft at 10.20 local hours.’’
It said a relief aircraft, EK 8385 had been deployed on the Hyderabad-Dubai route to ferry the remaining 205 passengers at 11.30 hours.
Indian news agency IANS earlier reported the aircraft first approached the Chennai airport but did not get clearance for landing as the runway was busy. ‘‘The pilot then contacted Air Traffic Control at Shamshabad and got the clearance to land,’’ the IANS report said.
Emirates operates A380s to 15 destinations across the world. It is scheduled to launch A380 services on the Dubai-Munich route from November 25; to Rome from December 1 and to Kuala Lumpur from January next year.
The A380 was unveiled in 2005 and has so far seen no fatal incidents.
Last November, Australian carrier Qantas grounded its entire fleet of six A380s after an engine blowout on one of its planes over Indonesia. In early 2010, another superjumbo operated by Qantas burst two tyres when landing in Sydney. In September 2009 an A380 was forced to return to Paris due to a technical problem.
Air France, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Korean Air, China Southern Airlines and Lufthansa are the only carriers flying the massive aircraft.
