Kumar Bahukhandi
Spice emergency landing
Mumbai : A SpiceJet aircraft’s wheel fell off after take-off from Kandla airport on Friday September 12, 2025 and the plane made an emergency landing at Mumbai airport, according to sources.
“On September 12, an outer wheel of a SpiceJet Q400 aircraft operating from Kandla to Mumbai was found at the runway after take-off. The aircraft continued its journey to Mumbai and landed safely,” the airline said in a statement.
Following a smooth landing, the aircraft taxied to the terminal under its own power, and all passengers disembarked normally, the airline said.
Sources said the aircraft made an emergency landing at Mumbai airport.
A Q400 aircraft has six tyres.
Details about the number of passengers onboard the aircraft could not be immediately ascertained.
Lets us tell you that SpiceJet is struggling financially, with more than half of its fleet grounded, hindering its ability to compete against rivals besides squeezing operational cash flows. The airline’s market share in the domestic sector fell to a historic low of 1.9%.
While SpiceJet had raised ₹3,000 crore from institutional investors last year and had promised to scale up to 40 aircraft by March, further increasing it to 100 by 2026-end, it hasn’t been able to do so due to supply chain shortage and parts supplier and lessor rurning cautious due to the airline’s pending dues.
Out of the 54 aircraft in its fleet, it has only 21 aircraft operating and is left with only ₹333 crore in free cash as of June-end. A large portion of that has been used primarily for clearing statutory dues like goods and services tax (GST), tax deducted at source (TDS), and provident fund.
The financial troubles have also been hampering SpiceJet’s daily operations with its on-time performance being the poorest and cancellation rate the highest among all airlines in July.
It has a token presence on top metro routes like Delhi-Mumbai.
SpiceJet said it has been able to settle with lessors and business partners. For a few lessors, it has been able to restructure their debt into equity. On MondaySeptember 8, 2025 , it said that it has completed a payment of $24 million to Credit Suisse as part of its settlement agreed upon in May 2022.
(With PTI Inputs )
