Bomb scare on AI flight, pilot uses chutes to evacuate flyers

Air India got a bomb threat for a Delhi-Goa flight on Sunday.



"The pilot deployed the four emergency chutes and the 89 passengers on board were immediately evacuated from the aircraft. The captain did not want to waste time on passenger evacuation thorough the regular way near the terminal," said an AI official.

Every aircraft has an escape slide attached to each door. In the event of an emergency evacuation, these chutes are deployed-inflated with bottled nitrogen to become like a slide to the ground-and passengers are made to alight by sliding on it. This was possibly the first time that flyers were evacuated through chute due to a bomb threat.

The aircraft was later checked and the bomb call proved to be another false scare. But since the emergency chutes had been deployed, the aircraft had to be grounded in Goa for almost eight hours as it could not have taken off without them being restored.

About 180 passengers were booked to fly this plane on the return, Goa-Delhi, sector flight AI 155. "AI 310, Mumbai-Delhi, was diverted to Goa to accommodate 118 passengers of AI 155. The remaining 60 flyers were flown to Delhi via Mumbai," said the official.

While in recent days there have been scores of hoax calls that have led to aircraft being delayed for checks, passengers being deplaned after boarding or aircraft being recalled to bays after taxiing out, this is possibly the first time that flyers had to be evacuated using emergency slides following a bomb call.

"There is a current alert about terrorists sneaking inside India and planning attacks. In such a situation, no chances can be taken and every threat call has to be treated urgently," said an official.

Given the massive disruption that hoax calls cause, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security chief B B Dash recently approved levying The Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation (SUASCA), 1982, act on hoax callers.

(Culled from timesofindia.com)