Cricket teams fly to Mumbai after emergency landing

NAGPUR: The Indian and the Australian cricket teams left for Mumbai on a special flight Monday following a long wait at the airport and their hotel here as their Jet Airways plane returned soon after take-off when it was hit by a bird in the morning.

The original Nagpur-Mumbai chartered flight took off at 9.40 a.m. but had to make an emergency landing after the bird hit.

"It's not a big issue and no one panicked as a plane being hit by a bird is a common phenomenon and the pilot decided to land again for a technical check-up," an official said.

The cricketers were stranded at the airport but later returned to the hotel where they had been put up for the sixth one-day international that India lost to the world champions.

"We never knew that a bird had hit the plane. The pilot used his intelligence and that was why no one on board panicked. It was only after landing again that we came to know the reason," a passenger said.

A special aircraft was flown in from Mumbai in the afternoon for the teams.

The two teams play the seventh and final one-day international of the Future Cup in Mumbai Wednesday.