SWISS confirmed an earlier report by Blick that 228 passengers and four infants were on board the Airbus A330-300.
Keystone-SDA
A Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) flight from Delhi to Zurich had to abort its take-off early on Sunday and four passengers were injured during an emergency evacuation at Delhi Airport after a suspected engine problem.
+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
One of the aircraft’s engines failed and caught fire as the plane was accelerating for take-off, prompting the crew to stop the plane and initiate an emergency evacuation, the Economic Times, an Indian newspaper, reported.
SWISS confirmed an earlier report by Blick that 228 passengers and four infants were on board the Airbus A330-300. Four passengers needed medical attention following the evacuation, while all crew members were unharmed. The airline did not disclose further details about the injured passengers but stressed that passenger and crew safety remains its top priority.
Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport said earlier on X that it had declared an emergency following the incident on flight LX147.
Emergency braking manoeuvre
The aircraft had reportedly started its take-off phase when the problem occurred, prompting an emergency braking manoeuvre and deployment of evacuation slides. Most passengers exited via the slides; stairs were provided for those unable to use them.
SWISS described the incident as distressing for everyone involved. Ground staff are assisting passengers with re-booking and hotel accommodation, and the airline is coordinating closely with local authorities. A crisis unit has been set up, and technical specialists have been sent to Delhi to inspect the aircraft and determine the cause of the incident.
Runway operations at the airport have since resumed and all other flights are reportedly on schedule. Delhi Airport, India’s busiest, has four operational runways.
In mid-March, SWISS reported strong demand on the Delhi–Zurich route due to the war in Iran, temporarily doubling its daily flights on the route.
Translated from Italian with DeepL/with additional input sb
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.