Nurse, friend land flight in soup

Kochi: A Hindi-English language problem led to tense moments for an Air India domestic flight and landed a nurse and her friend in trouble too. The Delhi-based friend of the nurse made a telephone enquiry about a bomb alert in Kochi forcing a Kochi-Delhi Air India flight with 156 passengers to make an emergency landing in Bangalore on Monday night.  And the airline on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Nedumbassery police against the Malayali  nurse, who was aboard  the flight, and her friend.

“The airline filed a complaint against a woman traveller Jiji, an Idukki native nurse working in Delhi, and her friend K.P. Prajeesh, on Tusday morning. A case has been registered against the duo for false alarm and causing commotion,” police said.

The woman was flying to Delhi and boarded the Airbus 320 (flight AI-047) which was scheduled to depart at 8 p.m. on Monday but was delayed by over 40 minutes. She sent an SMS message to her friend that the airport was  under a red alert due to reports of a possible bomb attack. A worried Prajeesh then called up the airport but the call was diverted to Air India’s extension number.

“He asked whether the plane was being delayed due to the bomb alert measures and whether it would be delayed further. But the official who took the phone spoke only Hindi and there was a total miscommunication. He took it for a bomb threat,” the woman told reporters later.    n Continued on P7