Passengers suffocate as air conditioner fails on Goa flight

Passengers of SpiceJet flight number SG-806 had a harrowing experience on their way from Goa to Ahmedabad on Monday evening. One of them fainted from suffocation as the aeroplane’s air-conditioning system failed to work, while the rest had what was probably the worst ride of their life.

According to passengers, SpiceJet officials did nothing to soothe the ruffled passengers at Goa airport when they complained that the A/C was not functioning.

Ahmedabad businessman Atul Mittal told DNA, after the plane landed here at 10 pm, three hours behind schedule: “We lodged a complaint at Goa airport itself, but no one bothered to hear our pleas. We were ready to stay back till the air conditioner was repaired, but our words fell on deaf ears. A foreigner quit the
aircraft in disgust and did not return.”

With some 60 passengers aboard, the aircraft took off, at 5 pm, and when it was well up in the sky, one passenger fainted as the oxygen level in the compartment dropped. “At that time all of us were feeling terrible … we all felt we would suffocate,” Mittal said.

At 6.30pm, the plane, forced to divert its path, made an emergency landing in Mumbai.

But the passengers’ woes did not end there. No aeroplane officials met them or told them how long they would be held up or when the A/C would be restored.  “We were stuck in Mumbai for about one and a half hours. The officials had the cheek to offer us Rs1000 as compensation …” a passenger said in disgust.

Their ordeal finally got over when the A/C was repaired and the plane touched down in Ahmedabad at 10 pm, instead of the scheduled 7.30 pm arrival.