Bus blaze at Delhi Airport’s T3: How close did we come to disaster?

A silent crisis nearly erupted this afternoon at New Delhi’s biggest air-hub. A bus used for ground operations at the large Terminal 3 complex of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) burst into flames — parked just metres from a boarded aircraft.

The vehicle — operated by AI SATS Airport Services Private Limited, a ground-handling arm of Air India (via a third-party contract) — erupted at Bay 32 of Terminal 3’s apron zone, very close to where aircraft are parked and serviced.

What could have been a major aviation disaster ended up instead as a grey-area near-miss. Crucially: there were no passengers on board the bus at the time and no injuries or immediate damage to nearby aircraft have been reported.

Eyewitness video footage taken by a traveller shows the bus engulfed in orange flames, heat waves flickering beneath the terminal lights and the aircraft on the adjacent bay just feet away. Fire-fighters from the airport’s emergency services arrived swiftly and contained the blaze before it spread to the plane, fuel trucks or nearby equipment.

Airport operations appear to have continued without major disruption, a relief given how tightly scheduled and congested the T3 apron area is.

Initial reports suggest a suspected short-circuit within the bus’s electrical system, though investigation is still underway. Officials from both Air India and airport fire safety have begun reviewing ground-vehicle maintenance logs, bus-parking protocols and proximity rules for service vehicles around aircraft. The fact that the bus was so close to a plane when the fire ignited is generating pointed questions.

While the situation did not disrupt flights or cause injuries, this fire will likely trigger a review of ground-support vehicle safety across major Indian airports. The fire-response timeline will be scrutinised, as will the technical cause and whether maintenance or vehicle age played a role.

For Air India and its contractors, the scrutiny will focus on whether vehicle maintenance schedules were followed, whether the bus should have been moved further away from the aircraft, and whether staff are trained to detect early-warning signs.

A fire that started in a ground-service bus parked at one of India’s busiest terminals could have turned into a far more serious crisis — one that might have involved passengers, aircraft, or worse. That it didn’t is fortunate, but perhaps luck played as much a part as system-integrity.