For the second time in a week, Air India (AI) passengers had to spend hours locked up in a plane as their Mumbai-Hong Kong flight landed back in Mumbai within 45 minutes of takeoff. The aircraft came back due to a technical problem on Saturday evening and finally took off after five hours on Sunday. In a similar incident on December 21, nearly 180 passengers on AI’s Mumbai-Chennai flight had to remain in the plane for more than an hour without air-conditioning. But Air India said the flight got delayed due to an alleged brawl between the crew and passengers.
On Saturday (December 26), Bharat Shah (name changed) was to travel by AI’s 7pm Mumbai-Hong Kong flight. “The flight took off but came back after 45 minutes as there was some technical problem in the aircraft,” says Shah. “After we landed at Mumbai, the crew refused to tell us what the status was and when we were to leave for Hong Kong.”
The passengers said the plane’s air-conditioning was turned off after its landing and they started feeling breathlessness. “Rather than addressing us, the crew started fighting among themselves. They told us that though their flight duty time limit (FDTL) was over, they were on board because of us!” a passenger said.
The passengers were made to remain in the plane till 11pm. “We sat in the plane for three hours. We requested the crew to deplane us, but they said they could not as they did not have adequate buses to ferry us to the terminal,” Shah said. The passengers were deplaned and taken to the transit lounge after 11 pm. Only at 2am was the problem in the aircraft rectified, and the flight took off for Hong Kong.
According to AI sources, it was the same aircraft, an Airbus 310, which had flown with two choked toilets from Hong Kong to Mumbai via New Delhi on December 3. The aircraft has been leased from Singapore Airlines and it is difficult to get spares whenever there is a problem with it.
Confirming the incident, the AI spokesperson said: “The aircraft returned due to a technical problem. After assessing the complaint, a change of aircraft was identified and the passengers were transferred to another plane, which took off at 2am.” On why the passengers were made to remain in the plane for three hours, he said engineers were identifying the extent of damage and it took that much time.
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