BENGALURU: A 20-year-old passenger has been arrested by Kempegowda International Airport police for smoking inside the washroom of an Indigo flight from Kolkata to Bengaluru on Friday. This is the second such instance recorded on the same route of the IndiGo flight within a fortnight.
The incident occurred on flight number 6E 716 on March 17 at 1.45 am.
According to police sources, Seheri Chowdhury, an Assam native, had lit up a cigarette inside the washroom.
“Passengers could feel the smell and smoke emanating from it and alerted the cabin crew. After the flight landed, the Flight Captain booked a complaint at the airport police station,” they said.
A senior police official said, “He had worked in a mall in Bengaluru as a salesperson earlier. He had left his job and gone back to his hometown. He had come back to Bengaluru to search for a job.”
Chowdhury was arrested and has been booked under sections 336 IPC and 3 (1) ( C ) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982. He has been produced before the judicial magistrate and sent to jail, he added.
On March 5, a woman on board 6E 716 was arrested for smoking inside the washroom.
Asked about the implications of smoking on board, a top security official said, “Such an act will put the safety of the aircraft at risk. An aircraft has an air-conditioned environment and the temperature difference inside it and outside is huge. There are smoke detection systems which if activated will generate alarm and create a huge panic.”
IndiGo was yet to respond to a query in this connection.