VASCO
According to a reliable source, the incident took place as passengers began arriving at Dabolim airport in the early hours of Thursday, to catch the Air India flight 648 bound to Mumbai at 7.20 am.
“Some had arrived as early as 5 am, and when passengers reached the airport, they were informed that the flight had been delayed. The situation went out of control as there were no Air India officials to inform passengers about the cause of the delay,” said the source.
“A local from Navelim, who was accompanying his 55-year-old wife to Leelavati hospital in Mumbai for an operation on her leg, later confronted the AI duty manager and other staff. He was keen to reach the hospital so that his wife could get early treatment,” the source added.
Speaking to mediapersons at the airport, Sebastiao D’costa said he was to report on duty in UK on Friday.
“The AI staff assured me of a connecting flight from Goa to Mumbai to Delhi and later to UK. But this delay at Dabolim airport will create more trouble for me at other airports and I fear of missing the UK-bound flight from Delhi,” D’Costa informed the media. As tension began to mount at the airport, the AI duty manager N Pardhan rushed to the site and tried to pacify the passengers and stated that the delay had been due to some technical snag.
Pardhan urged the passengers to maintain calm and assured them that the flight would take off by 9 am.
“We could not do anything as it was a technical snag and the technical team was busy rectifying the fault,” Pardhan explained to the reporters.
After the technical staff certified that the aircraft was airworthy, the AI flight left Dabolim airport at about
9.30 am.
