Air Astana aircraft makes second emergency landing in 24 hours

Flight KC931 operated by Air Astana from Almaty to Bangkok made an emergency landing at Delhi airport on Dec. 18 due to a technical malfunction.

The airline said in a statement that the aircraft, with 138 passengers on board, departed from Almaty at 1 a.m. and landed in India’s capital at 5:01 a.m. The company emphasized that the landing went normally.

The passengers are being provided with food and temporary visas, while accommodation issues are being handled. At the same time, the airline is preparing a reserve aircraft to deliver passengers to their destination.

This marks the second incident for the airline in the past 24 hours. On Dec. 17, flight KC851 serving the Almaty-Astana route made an emergency landing at the departure airport due to smoke in the cabin.

Notably, one of the company’s largest shareholders, British BAE Systems, sold 10.1% of its Air Astana shares for $52.2 million, whereas the initial expectation was that the shareholder would reduce its stake to approximately 8%.