Uproar in House over Mamata’s flight delay, DGCA orders inquiry
NEW DELHI: Opposition members caused uproar in Parliament on Thursday, alleging that a private flight with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on board was low on fuel and was made to hover over Kolkata airport.
Trinamool Congress MPs staged a protest in the Lok Sabha, alleging that the plane scare incident was an attempt to eliminate the party chief, who has been at the forefront of protests against the government’s move to scrap high-value banknotes.
Airport officials in Kolkata said the IndiGo flight (6E 342) took off from Patna at 7.35pm on Wednesday — an hour behind schedule — and landed in the West Bengal capital shortly before 9 pm after hovering over 30 minutes in the sky due to technical reasons.
But Trinamool members dismissed this, alleging that the delay and fuel shortage was part of a concerted plan. “This is nothing but a conspiracy to kill our chief minister as she has raised voice against demonetisation and is touring the country to organise a mass movement against the anti-people decision,” Bengal minister Firhad Hakim said.
The private airline, IndiGo, however, has denied the reports.
Directorate General of Civil Aviation ordered an inquiry on Thursday after as many as three flights over Kolkata reported low fuel at the same time on Wednesday. The other two flights were of Air India and SpiceJet.
“IndiGo flight 6E 342 from Patna and Kolkata made a normal landing at the Kolkata airport on Wednesday. The flight was kept on hold for landing due to air traffic congestion at Kolkata. The pilot operating 6E-342 had advised the ATC that he has eight minutes of extra holding fuel over Kolkata before commencing diversion to the planned alternate. However, this information was misunderstood by the Air Traffic Controller who assumed that the aircraft had only eight minutes of total fuel left,” IndiGo said in a statement.