Congressman KC Venugopal was singled out by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) when he claimed that an Air India flight, he and other MPs were on hand to abort its landing at Chennai airport because another plane was using the runway. Air India, however, rejected Venugopal’s assertion.
Air India disputed a senior Congress leader’s social media post on a purported runway tragedy at Chennai airport, which sparked a political dispute.
What began as a routine flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi has landed its pilgrims in hot political waters, after the senior Congress leader KC Venugopal claimed a near-tragedy on an emergency diversion to Chennai.
Describing how he found his flight-the-scenic-route of fault lines-the picture of chaos and lost signals where the pilots came to the rescue at the last moment was advertised through his social media accounts. Air India, however, has gone public in contradiction to critical parts of his version creating quite an exciting war of words.
Alleged Mid-Air Drama
As Venugopal puts it, the flight AI 2455 of Air India had just departed when it was said to have started severe turbulence. An hour after the flight took off, the captain announced that there was a signal fault and that the Aeroplan was being diverted to Chennai.
The aircraft is said to have been circling for the next two hours at the airport, where it would be able to land. During the first landing attempt, according to the Congress leader, the runway was occupied by yet another aircraft, so an urgent go-around had to be initiated, or as he put it, “saved every life on board.”
Air India flight AI 2455 from Trivandrum to Delhi – carrying myself, several MPs, and hundreds of passengers – came frighteningly close to tragedy today.
What began as a delayed departure turned into a harrowing journey. Shortly after take-off, we were hit by unprecedented…
— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) August 10, 2025
He also asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to do the necessary investigating, underlining that the safety of passengers must not rely on “luck.”
Air India’s Counter-Narration
Air India was quick to dissociate itself, characterizing the diversion as precautionary with respect to a possible technical malfunction combined with adverse weather conditions. Apart from this, the airline answered, that while no aircraft occupied that runway, the go-around was quite a standard safety measure by Chennai Air Traffic Control due to debris on the runway, not that it was an emergency collision avoidance maneuver.
This version was concurred with by the DGCA, which affirmed that the flight had landed safely and that post-flight checks revealed only precautionary trans receiver changes and no major faults.
Political Repercussions
The incident earned very harsh political responses. BJP leader Amit Malviya has accused Venugopal of spreading mischief and suggested that he should be penalized, including possibly being put on a no-fly list, should he be proven wrong. Malviya, going on, argued that baseless allegations regarding aviation safety could incite public panic and malign the repute of air travel in India.
“This is a really severe matter. “One of them is lying if senior Congress leader KC Venugopal says an Air India flight had to cancel its landing in Chennai because another plane was on the runway and the airline immediately denies him,” the BJP lawmaker stated in his X post.
This is extremely serious.
If senior Congress leader KC Venugopal claims an Air India flight had to abort landing in Chennai because another aircraft was on the runway and the airline immediately contradicts him, then one of them is misrepresenting facts.
Aviation safety is… https://t.co/SI4m6eMt39 pic.twitter.com/eH2k2gHf3t
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 11, 2025
Safety Concerns Under Scrutiny
Against the background of the recent AI-171 disaster in Ahmedabad in June, which took lives of 260 people, this dispute occurs amid increased scrutiny on India’s aviation safety. Precautionary emergency diversions are not uncommon, but the reality is that there is much greater sensitivity in the public ear, and even the most minor incidence can cause a massive media and political stir.
Whether it is the case that Venugopal is miscommunicating, misunderstanding, or expressing a true fear, it serves to illustrate the delicate trust with which both passenger and airline must be held with authorities-trust, be it grounded in transparency or fact-based reporting.
ALSO READ: ‘Saved by Luck’: Air India Flight with Kerala MPs Faces Mid-Air Scare, Diverts to Chennai
