Amritsar, September 28
Efforts by the Air India staff to locate in its Boeing-777 plane the rat that had led to an 11-hour delay in the airline’s Toronto-bound flight AI-187 on Saturday morning proved futile even on Monday, with the airline management finally moving the “rat-carrying” plane to New Delhi today where the aircraft would be subjected to thorough examination.
The plane had been parked at Rajasansi airport since Saturday after a rat was was spotted in the plane at 6.30 am by “luggage loaders”. The flight was cancelled and the aircraft parked aside.
Passengers were de-planed and moved on to another plane late on Saturday evening after more than 11 hours amidst allegations by passengers that they were not put up in a hotel during the prolonged “search rat”, as per norms.
Air India officials, led by Air India’s Rajasansi airport manager Ashwani Kumar Arora, tried to find the rat. The “search operation” was abandoned on Monday morning. Finally, Air India officials decided to take the plane to Delhi where its fumigation would be done to ferret out the rat and another rat in a cage placed inside the plane to check efficacy of fumigation. “If the rat in the cage dies, it would be presumed the rat inside the plane had also died. It is test to check efficiency of fumigation,” said an official.
Rajasansi airport director Chinson VS Pankal confirmed the plane had been moved to Delhi. He said the plane had left the Rajasansi airport sans passengers this morning. The plane was flown to Delhi by Capt Arvinder Singh.
