Indigo flight from Delhi carrying 178, including PM’s Principal Secy, diverted midair due to cracks at Jharsuguda runway

The passengers, including Mishra, spent around two hours at the Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar before the issue in Jharsuguda was fixed.

Written by Sujit Bisoyi

Bhubaneswar | Updated: April 18, 2025 11:47 PM IST

2 min read

The flight, which was scheduled to land at Jharsuguda airport at 3.20 pm, eventually reached there at 7.13 pm.

An Indigo flight from Delhi to Jharsuguda in Odisha, carrying 178 passengers including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Secretary P K Mishra, was diverted to Bhubaneswar due to cracks in the runway at Jharsuguda airport, officials said.

The passengers, including Mishra, spent around two hours at the Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar before the issue in Jharsuguda was fixed. The flight, which was scheduled to land at Jharsuguda airport at 3.20 pm, eventually reached there at 7.13 pm.

Jharsuguda airport director Sandeep Kumar Tiwari said authorities had issued a NOTAM (notice to airmen) after detecting some cracks on the two-km runway.

“It is quite normal for the concrete slabs of the runway to develop cracks during the summer. The inspection team detected the cracks half an hour before the scheduled landing of the flight. Though the cracks are generally repaired within 30 minutes, this time it took a bit longer. So we preferred to divert the flight to Bhubaneswar,” Tiwari told The Indian Express.

Odisha Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja and transport secretary Usha Padhee rushed to the Bhubaneswar airport to meet Mishra during the two hours the flight was there. Mishra, a native of Odisha’s Sambalpur, is scheduled to attend the convocation of IIM Sambalpur.

A 1972-batch IAS officer, Mishra has been serving as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister since September 2019.

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