Air Arabia: Flight Makes Emergency Landing

An Air Arabia flight from Sharjah to Kathmandu in Nepal had to make an emergency landing at an airport in the Indian city of Patna yesterday due to bad weather and fuel shortage.

Flight G9 537 could not make a scheduled landing at the Kathmandu airport because of inclement weather conditions and was diverted to Lok Nayak Jayprakash Narayan Inter-national Aiport in Patna when it started running out of fuel, said India's PTI news agency quoting airport director Atul Dikshit.

"The pilot requested permission to make an emergency landing which was promptly granted," Dikshit said.

"The aircraft with 160 passengers and crew landed safely, but no one was allowed to disembark due to immigration constraints," he said.

Air Arabia's public relations manager Housam Raydan confirmed the incident.