After a female passenger raised the alarm about a suspicious text message she got on a fellow traveler’s phone here, a flight from Mangaluru to Mumbai was delayed by six hours. Before the IndiGo flight was permitted to depart for Mumbai on Sunday evening, all of the passengers were asked to disembark the plane, and their luggage was carefully examined for any signs of sabotage, according to police. On the plane, a man had a message on his phone, which a female passenger spotted and reported to the flight attendants.
The crew alerted the Air Traffic Controller, and the flight that was ready to take off returned to the bay. The man was chatting with his girlfriend, who was to catch a flight to Bengaluru from the same airport. The man was later not allowed to board the flight due to the questioning that lasted for several hours, while his girlfriend missed her flight to Karnataka’s capital.
All the 185 passengers were later reboarded on the Mumbai-bound flight after thorough checking of the baggage, and the airplane left at 5 pm. No complaint has been filed till late at night as it was a friendly chat between two friends over security, city police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said.
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Earlier, an IndiGo flight from Jorhat, Assam, to Kolkata went off the runway before takeoff, the airline reported, and two of its wheels were stuck in the muddy outfield.
The incident occurred on Thursday as the plane was taxing out for takeoff with 98 passengers aboard, and the flight was cancelled as a result, it said. “During takeoff, IndiGo flight 6E-757, which runs from Jorhat to Kolkata, returned to the bay. The captain was informed that one of the main wheels had partially run over the grass next to the taxiway as they were exiting the aircraft “In a statement, the airline stated.
With inputs from PTI