Mumbai-Guwahati IndiGo flight makes emergency landing in Dhaka amid dense fog

Silchar: An IndiGo flight bound for Guwahati from Mumbai made an emergency landing in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Saturday morning amid poor visibility, people aware of the matter said.

IndiGo flight 6E 5319 was forced to reroute to Dhaka as it failed to make a landing at Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport due to heavy fog and was diverted to nearby Dhaka, some 400 km from Guwahati.

Due to the poor visibility caused by dense fog, the pilots were unable to land the flight at the Guwahati Airport and the team decided to divert the flight to Dhaka, said the people mentioned above.

The flight landed at Dhaka International Airport at around 4am on Saturday.

One of the passengers on the flight was former Mumbai Youth Congress chief, Suraj Singh Thakur, who was on his way to Manipur (Imphal) to join Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

Taking to X, he wrote, “I took@IndiGo6Eflight 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati. But due to dense fog, the flight couldn’t land in Guwahati. Instead, it landed in Dhaka. Now all the passengers are in Bangladesh without their passports, we are inside the plane.”

According to Thakur, it’s been nine hours since the passengers have been stuck inside the aircraft.

People familiar with the matter said there were a total of 178 passengers on the plane.

The airline is in the process of arranging an alternate set of crew to operate the flight from Dhaka to Guwahati, IndiGo said.

“IndiGo flight 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati was diverted to Dhaka, Bangladesh due to bad weather in Guwahati. Due to operational reasons, an alternate set of crew is being arranged to operate the flight from Dhaka to Guwahati. The passengers were kept informed of updates and were served with refreshments on board. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused,” the airline said in a statement on Saturday.