Kolkata, 17 June

Air India had to terminate its San Francisco-Mumbai flight at its scheduled stopover at Kolkata on Tuesday morning after one of its engines developed a technical snag.

Termination of the flight, a Boeing 777-200 LR, led to chaotic scenes at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport as its 211 passengers scrambled to convince officials for letting them reach the destination at the earliest.

The Tata Group-owned carrier, which lost one of its aircraft in Ahmedabad, leading to the deaths of over 270 people earlier this month, did not issue any official statement on the Kolkata issue.

However, sources said the carrier is making "special arrangements" to fly the passengers to Mumbai, adding that a slot in Kolkata has been secured but efforts are on to arrange aircraft and crew.

There was no word on the timeline for the operation of this special aircraft to ferry the passengers.

Usually, the carrier flies directly to Mumbai from San Francisco but the ongoing geopolitical events, including closure of Pakistani airspace, has led AI to reroute it and take a "technical halt" in Kolkata.

The flight, AI-180, landed in Kolkata at the scheduled time of 0045 hours, even though it took off one hour late from San Francisco.

According to sources, a technical snag was detected during routine post-landing checks and this is where the airline decided to do a comprehensive check.

It was scheduled to depart for Mumbai at 0200 hrs, but passengers came to know of the problems only after 0240 hrs, when the crew announced troubles with the left engine.

However, this announcement was accompanied by a specific promise that the snag will take up to 25 minutes to get sorted.

However, as the clock ticked by, distraught passengers having connecting flights from Mumbai started enquiring about the progress of the work with the cabin crew, but there was no clear response.

With the Ahmedabad accident being fresh, some passengers also said a delay is better than a mishap, while some wondered how an aircraft which had travelled thousands of kilometres could face problems in the last leg from Kolkata to Mumbai.

The next announcement came at 0420 hrs, where the pilots sought another 15-20 minutes for rectification of the problem.

The engineers could be seen working on the left engine even as a drizzle continued, but the problem persisted. Finally, around 0520 hrs, the pilots announced that a resolution is not possible and asked all passengers to deplane.

After disembarking, and passing the mandatory immigration, collecting baggage and passing the customs channels, the passengers were asked to sit in a designated area.

A few passengers pleaded with officials asking for the earliest option to travel to Mumbai. Some got lucky, while others continued to wait.

Finally, an Air Indiaofficial announced that Mumbai-bound flights were mostly full and convinced a bulk of the passengers to check into a hotel.