Varanasi: There was a mid-air scare after a passenger on a flight from Bengaluru to Varanasi attempted to open the cockpit door on Monday morning. The man was travelling with eight others. All of them have been handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) after the flight landed at Varanasi.
“After preliminary questioning, the CISF has handed them over to the police. They will be interrogated further to know more about the intention of the man who attempted to enter the cockpit,” an official said.
The incident happened on Air India Express flight IX-1086 that took off from Bengaluru at 8 am for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Varanasi.
The exact time of the incident is not known but it has been confirmed that the man walked up to the cockpit door and even managed to punch-in the right keys of the electronic lock. However, the pilot refused to unlock the door from the inside.
“The cabin crew then escorted the man back to his seat. The pilot informed the Varanasi airport of the situation and a CISF team was waiting when the aircraft landed around 10.27 am. The man and his companions were all taken into custody,” the official added.
Authorities are taking the matter very seriously as passengers are not allowed to enter the cockpit under any circumstances, unless permitted to do so by the commander of the aircraft.
Cockpit doors have two locks. There is an electronic locking system outside with the combination known to the cabin crew. Once the correct combination is punched in, the pilots receive an indication. They unlock the door from inside only after verifying who the person on the other side is. It was this system that prevented the man from entering the cockpit on Monday.
These additional security measures came into place after the horrific 9/11 terror attack on the US that killed 2,977 people. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists had hijacked four commercial airliners and flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. A third aircraft was intentionally crashed into the Pentagon.