More than 300 passengers of a Mumbai-bound Air India flight have been stranded for three days after the Boeing 747-400 was grounded at Heathrow airport following a bird hit.
The New York-London-New Delhi-Mumbai flight with 434 passengers returned to Heathrow within 20 minutes of taking off on Thursday night, following what officials said was a 'technical fault' that forced the pilot to dump fuel before landing.
An Air India spokesperson in Mumbai told PTI on Saturday that 96 passengers were flown by a relief aircraft to New Delhi via Ahmedabad.
"The remaining 338 passengers have been accommodated at various hotels near Heathrow airport," the spokesperson said.
The aircraft was scheduled to depart late Saturday evening and reach New Delhi by noon on Sunday.
K D Row, Air India's regional manager for UK and Ireland, said, "The flight returned to the airport as one of the engines was not able to work. We had to replace it. The engine was flown in from India on Friday with the engineers and the faulty engine was replaced on Saturday."
Row said the stranded passengers were paid an interim daily allowance of 50 pounds each. "They are being looked after," he said.
Asked if the Boeing was grounded due to a bird hit, Row said the engineers 'presumed it was so but it would be known once the faulty engine was opened up'.
Air India sources in Mumbai said the aircraft was grounded due to heavy ingestion in one of its engines after it was hit by a bird.
