Mangaluru: Nearly 180 passengers of a Mangaluru-Dubai SpiceJet flight were left stranded for over five hours after medical tests revealed that the flight commandant was in an inebriated state.
The flight, which was originally bound to depart from the Mangaluru airport at 12:40am Wednesday morning was finally airborne at around 6 am after authorities made arrangements to replace the pilot.
As per reports, the incident came to light during the routine medical tests that pilots need to undergo ahead of boarding the flights. The pilot, a 35-year-old woman of Turkish origin tested positive for alcohol during the medical tests, thus forcing the authorities to put off the departure till they could find a replacement pilot.
Meanwhile, the passengers, who had completed their check-in formalities and were awaiting a formal announcement to board the flight were informed that the flight would be delayed owing to a technical snag. However, the staff at the airport got a whiff of the actual reason behind the delay and soon it was known to the passengers too, who felt a sense of relief that a possible danger to their lives had been averted.
Interestingly, several such instances of pilots testing positive for alcohol have been reported in the past too and disciplinary action have been initiated against such erring pilots. In this case too, the pilot is facing an internal inquiry, till when she will not be allowed to operate any flights, said sources
For over a year now, SpiceJet has been operating flights between the city and Dubai. The aircraft belongs to Turkey-based Corendon Airlines and most of the flight personnel are of Turkish origin.
