A SpiceJet captain was forced to take the Boeing 737 back to the terminal during a scheduled flight from Delhi to Mumbai, India, the airline said in a statement
Two unruly passengers caused a seven-hour flight delay after allegedly attempting to get into the cockpit of a plane, it was claimed.
The pair is accused of making their attempt while the aircraft was taxiing for departure on Monday. Cabin crew and passengers pleaded with them to return to their seats, the airline said in a statement.
The captain was forced to take the Boeing 737 back to the terminal, as reported by Luxury Travel Daily. The jet was travelling from Delhi to Mumbai, India.
A video taken inside the cabin has gone viral, with passengers heard complaining about the delay. “You cannot stop a plane like this; this is illegal,” one passenger is heard saying. From the rear of the cabin another passenger says “AC chala de, hum baith jayenge”, which translates as “switch the AC on, we will sit down”, according to India Today.
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Several passengers are then heard asking the cabin crew to summon CISF security and remove the disruptive flyers. “Those who don’t want to go, make sure they get down,” says one of the passengers.
The SpiceJet flight, originally scheduled to depart at 12.30pm from Indira Gandhi International Airport, was delayed until 7.21pm, according to data from flight tracking service Flightradar24.com. A spokesperson for the airline said: “Two unruly passengers were offloaded from SpiceJet flight SG 9282 operating from Delhi to Mumbai. The two attempted to forcefully approach the cockpit and caused a disruption while the aircraft was taxiing.
“Despite repeated requests by the cabin crew, fellow passengers, and the Captain, they refused to return to their seats. In the interest of the safety of all passengers and crew, the Captain decided to return the aircraft to the bay, and the passengers were offloaded. They were subsequently handed over to the CISF.”
The airline said the decision to return to the terminal was made in the interest of passenger and crew safety. No injuries were reported.
The issue of passengers delaying plane departures is not new, but it certainly causes airlines a huge amount of grief. Even small disruptions can lead airlines to miss departure slots, pushing back their eventual take-off times significantly. Thanks to the compensation rights of passengers and airport fees, such delays can land plane operators with big bills.
Back in 2023, an Indian man travelling from New York to Delhi allegedly urinated on a co-passenger on an American Airlines flight, NDTV reported. A similar incident had taken place in 2022 when a drunk man allegedly urinated on an elderly woman in the business class of an Air India flight.