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HomeIndiaEngine snag grounds Air India San Francisco-Mumbai flight in Kolkata

Engine snag grounds Air India San Francisco-Mumbai flight in Kolkata

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Kolkata, Jun 17 (PTI) Air India terminated its San Francisco-Mumbai flight at its scheduled stopover in Kolkata on Tuesday morning after one of its engines developed a technical snag.

For the 211 passengers onboard the Boeing 777-200 LR aircraft, it proved to be a day-long ordeal, which had them being stuck for over 20 hours in the city against just over one hour that they were originally scheduled to spend at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport.

The Tata Group-owned carrier did not issue an official statement. The incident comes days after an Air India flight from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed seconds after takeoff, killing over 270 people onboard and on the ground on June 12.

As part of special arrangements to ferry the stuck passengers to Mumbai, Air India has announced that it will be operating a bigger aircraft, which can accommodate more passengers later in the evening.

Usually, the carrier flies directly to Mumbai from San Francisco, but the ongoing geopolitical events, including the closure of Pakistani airspace, have led AI to reroute it and take a “technical halt” in Kolkata.

Flight AI180 landed in Kolkata at the scheduled time of 12.45 am, even though it took off one hour late from San Francisco.

According to sources, a technical issue was detected during routine post-landing checks, and the airline decided to do a comprehensive check.

It was scheduled to depart for Mumbai at 2 am, but passengers came to know of the problems only after 2.40 am when the crew announced there was a problem with the left engine, according to a PTI reporter who was on the flight.

However, this announcement was accompanied by a specific promise that the snag would take up to 25 minutes to get sorted, the reporter said.

As the clock ticked by, distraught passengers having connecting flights from Mumbai started enquiring about the progress of the work with the cabin crew, but there was no clear response, the reporter said.

With the Ahmedabad accident being fresh, some passengers also said a delay is better than a mishap, while some wondered how an aircraft which had travelled thousands of kilometres could face problems in the last leg from Kolkata to Mumbai.

The next announcement came at 4.20 am when the pilots sought another 15-20 minutes for rectification of the problem.

The engineers could be seen working on the left engine even as a drizzle continued, but the problem persisted. Finally, around 5.20 am, the pilots announced that a resolution was not possible and asked all passengers to deplane.

After disembarking and passing the mandatory immigration, collecting baggage and passing the customs channels, the passengers were asked to sit in a designated area.

This was the start of some chaos, with the ground staff finding it challenging to cater to passengers. A few passengers pleaded with officials, asking for the earliest option to travel to Mumbai. Some got lucky, while others continued to wait.

There were about 150 passengers whose final destination was Mumbai, who were still stranded at the airport terminal.

Finally, an Air India official announced that Mumbai-bound flights were mostly full and convinced a bulk of the passengers to check into a hotel.

Food arrangements for the passengers were made and they were transported to the hotel for some much-needed rest. However, this proved to be shortlived, as instructions were issued to assemble at 4:30 pm for the onward journey to Mumbai.

As the evening progressed, and after grappling with some more chaos, the picture became clear for the passengers: a scheduled flight was running at a higher capacity, with a wide-body plane being dispatched to pick up the stranded passengers.

At 2115 hrs, when they are scheduled to take to skies again for the two-and-a-half journey to Mumbai, the stranded passengers would have spent over 36 hours in transit. PTI AA IAS BAL BAL BAL

This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

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