Flying at 33,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, passengers on board an Air India flight from New York JFK were attempting to get some rest during the ultra-long-haul 14-hour flight to New Delhi on Monday… that was until they were awoken by strange noises and vibrations coming from underneath their feet.
The vibrations are believed to have been first detected in passengers sitting in rows 33 and 34 towards the back of the Airbus A350-900 twinjet, but the noise and shaking soon started to be felt by others further up the airplane.
Passengers alerted the flight attendants to the strange phenomenon, who in turn told the pilots. The flight crew spent 30 minutes trying to identify the source of the noise, methodically shutting down various systems to see whether any of them was the source of the noise.
When the pilots couldn’t get to the bottom of what was causing the vibrations and strange noises, a decision was made to divert the aircraft to Shannon Airport in Ireland, where flight AI-102 landed without incident at around 4:30 am.
From there, many of the 240 passengers on board the two-and-a-half-year-old aircraft had to arrange emergency visas to enter Ireland before they could be taken to nearby hotels to wait out the mechanical delay to their journey.
The cause of the noise and vibrations remains a mystery, although passengers report that the plane passed through an area of turbulence just before it started.
There’s speculation that the turbulence dislodged some cargo that hadn’t been secured properly, or perhaps something as simple as a loose panel was the cause.
Whatever the cause was, the aircraft remains stranded in Shannon, and Air India is scrambling to send its own engineers from Delhi to inspect the aircraft. To make matters worse, Air India doesn’t normally fly to Ireland, so it doesn’t have any local support staff to assist the passengers.
In a lengthy statement, a spokesperson for Air India explained: “Flight AI102, operating from New York (JFK) to Delhi on March 15, made a precautionary diversion to Shannon, Ireland, following a suspected technical issue.”
“Consistent with Air India’s high safety standards, the aircraft is currently subject to extensive technical evaluations, which will require extra time to complete. During this period, our airport partners have been working closely with Shannon Airport authorities to extend full support to our guests and crew.”
The statement continued: “Meals and refreshments were provided, and assistance was arranged to help passengers complete immigration and customs procedures
The aircraft involved in this incident (registration: VT-JRF) was one of six Airbus A350s that were originally built and configured for Russian flag carrier Aeroflot.
Aeroflot was meant to take delivery of these planes shortly after President Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine. At the outset of the war, sanctions were imposed on Russia, and the aircraft order was effectively forfeited.
Air India quickly stepped in to snap up the order, applying a ‘soft’ upgrade to the plane’s interior to remove the Aeroflot branding and color scheme, while keeping the original seats chosen by the Russian carrier.
