IndiGo 6E623 Returns to Pune After Its Landing Gear Fails to Retract on the Way to Guwahati

IndiGo flight 6E623 from Pune to Guwahati turned back to Pune on Sunday morning, November 15, 2026, after its landing gear would not retract following takeoff. The aircraft, registered VT-IZE, landed safely at 9:04 a.m. local time, and Pune airport said all 192 people on board were unhurt.

The return triggered a full emergency at Pune, with fire and medical crews standing by. IndiGo is flying a replacement aircraft in from Bengaluru to take the passengers on to Guwahati.

What happened on 6E623

Soon after the jet left Pune, the pilot told air traffic control that the undercarriage had failed to retract and was still extended, according to a statement from the Pune airport authorities carried by the Press Trust of India and published by The Tribune.

The Indian Air Force, which runs the airfield, then declared a full emergency. Pune’s airport is a civil enclave on a military base, and Northeast Now reported that the Air Force handles air traffic there.

“The Indian Air Force (IAF) declared a Full Emergency, following which all prescribed emergency response procedures” were set in motion, Pune airport director Santosh Dhoke said, as quoted by The Week. Fire services, ambulances and other emergency teams were placed on high alert.

Before landing, the crew flew a low pass over the runway so that the gear could be checked visually from the ground. The aircraft then touched down at 9:04 a.m.

Three fire vehicles and two ambulances escorted the jet to Bay 7. Air traffic control withdrew the full emergency at 9:10 a.m. once the aircraft was judged safe, and passengers left through an aerobridge.

“All 192 persons on board, including passengers and crew, were safe and no injuries were reported,” the airport authorities said in their statement.

The aircraft and IndiGo’s response

VT-IZE is an Airbus A320neo, according to its registration listing on the incident database AeroInside. The airport’s statement, as reported, did not name the aircraft type.

IndiGo said the flight returned because of a technical issue shortly after takeoff and that the aircraft will undergo the necessary checks before it flies again, Northeast Now reported. The airline apologized for the disruption and offered affected passengers refreshments, rebooking on other flights or refunds.

Neither the airline nor the airport has said what stopped the gear from retracting. The reports so far do not mention an investigation by India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Why gear that stays down sends a jet back

A landing gear that will not come up is a different problem from one that will not come down. The wheels are already extended, so the jet can usually land normally, but it can no longer fly its planned trip efficiently.

Extended gear adds a great deal of drag. The safety reference site SKYbrary warns that fuel use with the gear locked down “is significantly higher than most pilots realise,” and that range can fall sharply because the aircraft also has to cruise lower.

SKYbrary adds that most flight management systems will not give reliable fuel predictions in that configuration. Pune and Guwahati sit roughly 1,240 miles (2,000 km) apart in a straight line, a long way to fly on figures the computer cannot be trusted to calculate.

That is the usual reason a crew with stuck-down gear turns back rather than pressing on. It is also why the 6E623 passengers had to wait for a replacement jet to be flown in from Bengaluru.

The low pass over Pune’s runway is a long-standing but debated technique. SKYbrary notes that flypasts can be useful when qualified technical staff do the inspecting, but that the real question with abnormal gear is usually not whether it is down but whether it is locked down, something a look from the ground cannot always settle.

In July, an American Airlines 777 with jammed gear abandoned a Boston to London flight and landed safely in New York for the same reason: drag made the planned trip impossible.

For IndiGo, Sunday’s full emergency follows the 6E723 engine failure near Chennai in August, when an A320-family jet lost an engine on approach. That flight also landed with everyone on board unhurt.