Air India Express flight carrying two Andhra Ministers to Bhogapuram diverted to Nagpur in bad weather

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Agriculture Minister K. Atchannaidu and MSME Minister Kondapalli Srinivas on board the Air India Express flight from Vijayawada that was diverted to Nagpur in bad weather on Wednesday night. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

An Air India Express flight from Vijayawada to Bhogapuram carrying Agriculture Minister K. Atchannaidu and MSME Minister Kondapalli Srinivas was diverted to Nagpur late on Wednesday (September 23, 2026) night because of bad weather. The Ministers, who were travelling to review rain preparations in north Andhra, and the other passengers were safe.

The flight, IX1373, was to land at the Alluri Sitharama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram at 9.40 p.m. It left Vijayawada at 8.52 p.m., 17 minutes late, and flew north-east to the coast, where it circled for about half an hour, according to open-source flight-tracking data from FlightAware. There were also reports of a failure in the signalling system at the airport. The pilots sought to return to Vijayawada or divert to Tirupati or Hyderabad before they were cleared to land at Nagpur, officials said. The aircraft touched down there at 11.42 p.m., two hours and eight minutes behind schedule.

Passengers on board the Vijayawada-Bhogapuram flight after it was diverted to Nagpur late on Wednesday. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The weather over the north Andhra coast was at its worst that night, when the deep depression over the Bay of Bengal was forecast to cross near Kalingapatnam. Bhogapuram saw 88 mm of rain in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning, the highest in Vizianagaram district, according to the State’s automatic weather stations.

The flight took two hours and 50 minutes from gate to gate, against the usual 65, and the aircraft flew about 1,150 km, more than twice the 540-km direct distance from Vijayawada to Nagpur, FlightAware’s data show. It is scheduled to run as usual on Thursday, leaving Vijayawada at 8.35 p.m.

Relatives of passengers and officials waited anxiously until the aircraft landed. The cabin crew had told passengers about the diversion, and the Ministers said they had not been worried. Both will fly back to Vijayawada via Bengaluru on Thursday morning, official releasae said.

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