Pilot grilled in heat-over-seat episode in air

Heavily-armed National Security Guard commandos and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel surrounded the plane as soon as it landed and was taxied to an isolated bay. Full anti-hijacking exercise was carried out for three hours and the trio, who threatened to hijack the plane, were detained.

Flights movement was disruped for over an hour.

"At 5.15 pm, when the plane was in Jaipur airspace the pilot of the aircraft reported to Air Traffic Control (ATC) that there are a couple of passengers who were misbehaving and threatening to hijack the plane," civil aviation secretary, M Madhavan Nambiar said.

The committee of secretaries on anti-hijacking met immediately with cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar in the chair to discuss the issue.u00a0

"The plane landed at 5.29 pm and was cordoned off by the security forces," Nambiar said. The passengers were not informed about the anti-hijacking exercise.

They remained in the flight for over three hours and were allowed to disembark after the NSG commandos and CISF personnel completed the full anti-hijacking drill 10 pm.

Pawan Sahani, a passenger on the flight who was travelling with his wife, Srishti Sahni, told MiD DAY: "The pilot kept announcing that the crew regret the inconvenience and the passengers will be allowed to disembark after ten minutes. But at no point of time were we told that there has been an hijack scare."

Vishambhar Botia, who was seating in one of the front rows of the aircraft, said, "A passenger in his thirties came and sat beside me. After few minutes, he had some argument with an airhostess. She asked him to move back to his seat. Though he went back, he kept on arguing with the crew members. I could not hear that. After that what happened we do not know?"

(With inputs from Agencies)

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