An Air India flight that was scheduled to depart from Amritsar to Dubai on Wednesday was delayed by 4 hours after a stray dog crept into the runway.
Amritsar’s International airport director, Venkateshwar Rao told that the flight which was ready to take off halted after the pilot saw a stray dog on the runway. The flight scheduled to depart at 3.15 PM, left the airport only at 7.10 PM in the evening. The reportedly aborted the flight as a precautionary measure to check if any damage was incurred on the flight.
The aborted flight underwent inspection by technicians and the pilot, and after receiving the permission from the civil aviation DG, the flight departed.
Previously today, a suspected rat sighting in an Air India aircraft from Mumbai to London caused the plane to return midway and an investigation was launched into the rodent incident.
"AI 131, Mumbai to London returned to Mumbai today due to suspected rat sighting. Though the presence of the rodent was not confirmed but keeping passenger safety in mind the aircraft was brought back,” Air India said in a statement.
Asserting that Air India gave ‘utmost’ importance to safety, they said that their engineering team was investigating the incident and that a standby aircraft was made available to fly the passengers to London.
“The aircraft with the suspected rodent will be fumigated as per procedure in such cases of rodent sighting," the statement added.
(With Inputs from ANI)