New Delhi: In a major fiasco, a Vancouver-bound flight has to return to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport after Air India realised it had deployed the wrong aircraft which did not have the permission to enter the Canadian airspace.
The aircraft had been in the air for nearly four hours before turning back on Thursday, The Indian Express reported.
According to the report, flight AI 185, operated by a Boeing 777-300 extended range (ER), flies from Delhi to Canada daily. However, on Thursday, a B777-200 long-range (LR) version took off from Delhi at 12:18 pm. The aircraft was not approved for the flight to Canada. It had flown for around four hours before turning
back while near the Chinese city of Kunming, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.
The flight landed back in Delhi in the evening and passengers were disembarked, the airline said. The flight for Vancouver departed on Friday morning, this time with the right aircraft.
It would have been a bigger problem had the aircraft reached Canadian airspace and not been allowed to enter, officials said.
“Air India flight AI185, operating from Delhi to Vancouver on 19 March, returned to Delhi due to an operational issue and in line with established standard operating procedures. The aircraft landed safely, and all passengers and crew had disembarked,” an Air India spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to our guests by this unforeseen situation. Our ground teams in Delhi had provided all necessary assistance, including offering hotel accommodation, while every effort was made to fly the passengers to their destination at the earliest. The flight for Vancouver departed this morning with the passengers,” the spokesperson added.