Air India Hong Kong to Delhi flight catches fire shortly after landing; plane grounded for investigation

In another concerning incident, an Air India Flight AI315 travelling from Hong Kong to Delhi on Tuesday (Jul 22) caught fire in its auxiliary power unit (APU) shortly after landing. The fire was detected after the plane was parked at the gate and the passengers had started disembarking, the airline said in a statement. All passengers and crew members are safe and have disembarked the aircraft normally. Some damage has been reported to the aircraft. The statement added that the aircraft has been grounded for further investigation.

“Flight AI315, operating from Hong Kong to Delhi on 22 July 2025, experienced an auxiliary power unit (APU) fire shortly after it had landed and parked at the gate. The incident occurred while passengers had begun disembarking, and the APU was automatically shut down as per system design,” Air India said in a statement on X.

It further added, “There was some damage to the aircraft, however, passengers and crew members disembarked normally, and are safe. The aircraft has been grounded for further investigations and the regulator has been duly notified.”

Recently, there have been several reports of aircraft facing technical issues. The incident comes amid increased scrutiny of Air India following the deadly Ahmedabad crash on June 12 that killed 260 people. Since the devastating disaster, concerns have been raised over airline’s maintenance and checks of their aircraft.

On Monday (Jul 21), an Air India flight from Delhi to Kolkata was cancelled after a technical issue was detected while the aircraft was accelerating on the runway at 155 km per hour. As per a NDTV report, the incident occurred at Delhi airport and involved an Airbus A321 aircraft with 160 passengers on board. The flight, scheduled to depart around 7:30 pm. All passengers were safely deboarded following the aborted takeoff.