Times of India
Jodhpur, Oct 16: Seventy-three passengers, among them Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi and a Supreme Court judge, aboard an Alliance Air flight had a close call when a bird hit the Boeing-737 aircraft in which they were travelling, soon after takeoff from Jodhpur, on Sunday.
The Mumbai-Udaipur-Jodhpur-Jaipur-Delhi flight of Alliance Air Boeing-737, CD 7472 left from Jodhpur at 5.05 pm for Jaipur, but had to return minutes later as the plane was hit by a vulture.
The bird was sucked into one of the aircraft's turbines and was later removed by the engineers. The flight then left for Jaipur at 7.35 pm.
The flight was carrying a Supreme Court judge, Justice P P Navlekar, and senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member, Abhishek Singhvi, among others.
"My son-in-law called me to say he is alright and there is a delay in his departure,"said Ganpat Sancheti, Singhvi's father-in-law.
The aircraft, which had taken off from Jodhpur and was on its way to Delhi, was turned around immediately and landed at the Jodhpur airport under emergency conditions.
"The flight landed under emergency conditions, but it was a safe landing. The emergency repairs were immediately conducted and the flight has taken off again and is on its way back to Delhi,"a source said late on Sunday evening.
Though airline and airport authorities kept mum on the issue, it was learnt that a major mishap was averted due to the pilot's alertness. "We are not even going to tell you the name of the pilot,"was the reply of the officer deputed at Jodhpur airport when asked for details.
Relatives of the passengers, too, were shocked at the behaviour of the airport and airline authorities. "They misbehaved with us on the phone and we were forced to watch TV to find out about our relatives' safety,"said Rahul Singhvi, whose cousin was on board.
This was the second case of bird-hit in Rajasthan in a month. A Jet Airways flight was hit by a bird last month in Jaipur.
Though Air Force officials refused to comment on the mishap on record, they were seen criticising the civil authorities.