Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], March 9 (ANI): An IndiGo Airbus A321 aircraft's tail touched the runway during landing at Chennai airport on Saturday, March 8, the airline said in a statement.

'The aircraft is grounded and will be back in operations post necessary repairs and clearance,' the statement said.

'At IndiGo, the safety of our customers, crew, and aircraft is our top priority. We operate with the highest standards of safety. We regret any inconvenience caused to our customers due to subsequent cancellations due to this grounding,' the statement added.

A tail strike occurs when the tail or empennage of an aircraft hits the ground or any other stationary object during take-off or landing.

In July 2023, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) imposed a penalty of Rs 30 lakh on IndiGo due to four tail strikes incidents in a time period of six months.

The civil aviation regulator found deficiencies in IndiGo's training and engineering procedure during audits of those incidents.

At that time, DGCA had carried out a special audit of Indigo airlines and reviewed their documentation and procedure on operations, training, engineering and Flight Data Monitoring programme.

During the special audit, 'certain systemic deficiencies' were observed in Indigo Airlines' documentation pertaining to operations/training procedures and engineering procedures.

In June 2023, an IndiGo aircraft was involved in a tail strike while landing at Ahmedabad. After the incident, DGCA suspended the license of the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft.

DGCA said that its investigation revealed that the crew carried out the landing in deviation from established standard operating procedures (SOPs).

In June 2023, an IndiGo aircraft was grounded after it suffered a tail strike during its landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

The incident took place when the plane was on course to Delhi from Kolkata. No injuries were reported in the incident. (ANI)