An Air India Express flight carrying two Andhra ministers to Bhogapuram was diverted to Nagpur due to bad weather

Agriculture Minister K. Atchannaidu and MSME Minister Kondapalli Srinivas on board an Air India Express flight from Vijayawada which was diverted to Nagpur on Wednesday evening due to bad weather. | 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 due to bad weather. The ministers, who were traveling to assess rain preparations in north Andhra, and other passengers were safe.

Flight IX1373 was scheduled to land at Alluri Sitharama Raju International Airport in Bhogapuram at 21:40. It left Vijayawada at 8:52 p.m., 17 minutes late, and flew northeast toward the coast, circling for about half an hour, according to open source flight tracking data from FlightAware. There were also reports of a malfunction in the airport’s signaling system. The pilots tried to return to Vijayawada or divert to Tirupati or Hyderabad before being allowed to land in Nagpur, officials said. The plane landed there at 23:42, two hours and eight minutes late.

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

The weather over the northern Andhra coast was at its worst that night when a deep depression over the Bay of Bengal was forecast to cross Kalingapatnam. Bhogapuram recorded 88 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours till Wednesday morning, the highest in Vizianagaram district, according to the state’s automatic weather stations.

The gate-to-gate flight took two hours and 50 minutes, up from the usual 65, and the plane had flown about 1,150 km, more than double the direct distance of 540 km from Vijayawada to Nagpur, FlightAware data shows. It is scheduled to run as usual on Thursday leaving Vijayawada at 8.35 pm

Relatives of the passengers and officials waited anxiously for the plane to land. Flight attendants told passengers about the diversion and ministers said they were not concerned. Both will fly back to Vijayawada via Bengaluru on Thursday morning, official reports said.

Published – 24 Sep 2026 10:05 AM IST