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29 March 2024

Dubai-Lahore flight in emergency 'Mayday' call

(Supplied)

Published
By Waheed Abbas

A passenger flight from Dubai to Lahore on Monday experienced low cabin pressure as the pilot called ‘mayday.’

The aircraft was flying at 37,000ft when the pilot made the call, after it suffered low pressure inside the plane.

The Air Traffic Controller asked the pilot to bring the aircraft down by 16,000ft to 21,000ft which helped improved the air pressure in the cabin.

Guided by the Air Traffic Controller, the aircraft later landed safely at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport. Independent News Pakistan said the 767 aircraft was operated by the private Pakistani carrier Shaheen Air.

According to the airline’s website, it operates eight flights per week – two on Tuesdays – on the Dubai-Lahore route. It’s not yet clear how many passengers were on board the aircraft.

This is second times in the last approximately three months that a Shaheen Air plane has had a serious incident.

In late December 2014, a Shaheen Air plane at Lahore airport had its front-wheel axle broken on landing, veering off the runway and stopping in a grassy area. The flight was coming from Karachi.

Flight safety

According to the International Air Transport Association (Iata), more than 3.3 billion people flew safely on 38 million flights – 330.6 million by jet, 7.4 million by turboprop.

The 2014 global jet accident rate – measured in hull losses per 1 million flights – was 0.23, which was the lowest rate in history and the equivalent of one accident for every 4.4 million flights. This was an improvement over 2013 when the global hull loss rate stood at 0.41 – an average of one accident every 2.4 million flights – and also an improvement over the five-year rate (2009-2013) of 0.58 hull loss accidents per million flights jet, Iata said.

In total, there 73 accidents in 2014 – all aircraft types – compared to 81 in the previous year and the five-year average of 86 per year.

There were 12 fatal accidents in 2014 with 641 fatalities, compared with an average of 19 fatal accidents and 517 fatalities per year in the five-year period (2009-2013), said the trade association of the world's 250 airlines.