NEW DELHI: A Delhi-bound IndiGo flight from Mumbai was delayed after one of its pilots reportedly fell unconscious inside the cockpit just before take-off, with a suspected food allergy cited as the cause.

The incident occurred last Saturday (September 6) on flight 6E 6827, scheduled to depart from Terminal 2 of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport at 11.15 a.m. Sources said the pilot began profusely sweating and collapsed moments before departure. He was rushed to a hospital, where multiple tests, including an electrocardiogram, confirmed his heart condition was normal.

The airline arranged for an alternate pilot, and the Airbus A320 Neo eventually took off after a delay of one hour and 13 minutes. The flight landed in Delhi at 2.23 p.m., instead of its scheduled arrival time of 1.37 p.m., according to a flight-tracking website.

An IndiGo spokesperson did not issue an official statement but confirmed the incident, saying, “We arranged an alternative pilot to operate the flight. The flight was delayed by nearly an hour.”

This marks the third such case of a pilot falling ill mid-duty in just over two months. On July 4, an IndiGo pilot operating a Delhi–Pune service collapsed inside the cockpit, causing a four-hour delay, while the same day an Air India pilot on a Bengaluru–Delhi flight also reported a similar health scare.