Air India A350 Grounded: Engine Ingests Cargo Container at Delhi Airport Amid Fog

It’s been a rough 24 hours for Air India’s flagship fleet. As of today, Friday, January 16, 2026, one of the airline’s brand-new Airbus A350s (VT-JRB) is grounded in Delhi after what can only be described as a “jinxed” flight.¹ Or nothing. Let’s be real, the plane had already turned back from its New York journey because Iran suddenly locked its skies.² Those too.

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The thing is, the “ingestion” happened at 5:25 AM on Thursday, right after the plane touched down safely.³ While taxiing in dense fog at the N/N4 intersection, the right-side engine sucked in a massive cargo container.⁴

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The “Engine Ingestion” Log: Field Notes

It’s an ongoing situation where a series of small equipment failures led to a multi-million dollar engine repair.

• The “Freak” Trigger: A tug from Bird Worldwide Flight Services (BWFS) was hauling containers to Terminal 3.⁵ The thing is, one wheel on the dolly snapped off. The container toppled onto the taxiway.⁶ And here’s the kicker—the operator saw the A350 coming, panicked, and drove off with the rest of the containers, leaving the fallen one right in the path of the jet’s massive suction.⁷

• Visibility Zero: Marginal visibility (dense fog) meant the pilots couldn’t see the metal box on the ground.⁸ The thing is, the A350’s Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines are incredibly powerful.⁹ Even at taxi speeds, they create enough of a vacuum to pull in heavy objects.¹⁰

• The Damage: DGCA photos show the fan blades are absolutely shredded. The thing is, “ingesting” a metal container isn’t like hitting a bird; it’s structural carnage.

• The “Jinxed” Route: Flight AI101 originally took off at 2:00 AM. It was cruising over Gujarat when the crew got word: Iran’s airspace is closed due to military escalations.¹¹ They turned back, landed safely, and then the accident happened.¹² Talk about bad timing

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Air India A350: Grounding & Route Impact

And Here’s the Kicker…

Air India only has six A350s.¹³ With one now out of service for potentially weeks, the airline is already warning of cancellations on its most prestigious long-haul routes.¹⁴ The thing is, they were already struggling with a wide-body shortage.¹⁵ Those too.

It’s an ongoing situation where the DGCA is now breathing down the neck of ground-handling agencies at IGI Airport.¹⁶ The thing is, if a wheel can just “fall off” a baggage trolley on a live taxiway, it raises massive questions about maintenance protocols during the winter fog season.

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End…

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