Mumbai: In a strange incident that happened on Saturday night, 40 SpiceJet passengers, on their way to board a flight from Kochi to Mumbai, saw their airline take off without them while they were still in a bus.
The confusion was discovered only after the passengers raised an alarm to the bus driver, who alerted the airline ground staff and crew.
Air traffic control then proceeded to inform the pilot, who turned around the Boeing 737 to pick up the remaining passengers.
The SpiceJet flight from Kochi to Mumbai initially got delayed by 75 minutes, which led to a series of confusing events.
When the passengers were being transported from the terminal to the plane, there was a sudden downpour, which led to the bus halting for over 30 minutes.
There were two SpiceJet aircrafts parked ahead - the Boeing 737 bound for Mumbai and a Q400 that was heading to Chennai. When they saw the bigger aircraft moving, they urged the driver to take them to their flight, fearing it might be the one flying to Mumbai.
"We were worried that this was our flight, since ours was the Mumbai flight and so it would be operated by the bigger aircraft. But since it's not possible that they would leave passengers behind, we weren't sure," a passenger said.
The bus driver then took passengers to the Chennai-bound flight and seeing their boarding passes, they were informed that they got the wrong flight. Meanwhile, the Boeing 737 stated to taxi towards the runway.
The passengers caused an outrage which made the crew call back the flight from the runway in a frenzy and remaining travellers finally boarded the plane.
P Mohanan, a former ICAO security auditor, said, "In 1985, Air India's Kanishka bombing took place only because the terrorists had checked-in their bags, but they didn't board. Since then passenger-baggage reconciliation has been made mandatory. Even if one passenger has not boarded and his/her bag has been checked in, it has to be removed before the plane can depart. This is a major security breach and an inquiry should be conducted."
The aircraft, which was scheduled to take off at 8:10pm, finally departed at 10pm.
