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, officials said.
The termination led to chaotic scenes at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport here as the 211 passengers on the Boeing 777-200 LR tried to convince officials to let them reach their destination at the earliest.
There were 228 people on board the aircraft, including pilots and crew. The flight was originally scheduled to depart to Mumbai from Kolkata at 2 AM on Tuesday.
The Tata Group-owned carrier did not issue an official statement till the filing of the report.
The incident came 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.
Sources said Air India is making "special arrangements" to fly the stranded passengers to Mumbai. No further details were available.
All the passengers were given breakfast, and, according to their preferences, many were transferred to hotels, while efforts were on to accommodate other passengers on alternative flights to Mumbai, an Air India official said.
Later, an Airports Authority of India (AAI) official in Kolkata said that the majority of passengers have been shifted to a hotel near the airport, while a few have been accommodated at another.
Usually, the carrier flies directly to Mumbai from San Francisco but the ongoing geopolitical events, including 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.
"You cannot disembark passengers or upload fresh food on board during such tech stops, as per rules and regulations," the Air India official told PTI.
AAI Officials at the Kolkata airport said that the technical problem was detected at the port side (left) engine of the aircraft.
According to sources, a technical issue was detected during routine post-landing checks, and the airline decided to do a comprehensive check.
Though it was scheduled to depart for Mumbai at 2 am, 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 will take up to 25 minutes to get sorted, the reporter said.
However, as the clock ticked by, 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 is 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.
A few passengers pleaded with officials asking for the earliest option to travel to Mumbai. Some got lucky, while others continued to wait.
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 done, and the process of checking into the hotel had been completed at the time of publishing this story.
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