Technical issue with toilets grounds Delhi-Pune Air India flight; 134 passengers delayed by over four hours
A flight carrying 134 passengers from Delhi to Pune on Tuesday could not take off from Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) due to a technical issue with the toilets and an alternate flight was arranged for passengers after four hours.
Passengers were seated inside flight AI 2982, an Airbus 321 Neo model, for 75 minutes before being finally asked to deboard. They were accommodated in another aircraft after going through security checks again, it is understood.
Sources told that it was not a case of clogged toilets.
"The waste tank in the flight which is a common one for all the toilets needs to be emptied before departure. Though engineers were trying their best, it was not getting emptied due to some technical issue. This is a narrow body flight with just four toilets. These are machines and such glitches can happen," a source said.
Meanwhile, boarding of passengers had started. "Since it was taking some time to rectify the technical fault, passengers were deboarded and put on another aircraft. It was not a major issue as within a short time the tank got emptied and the aircraft was used for subsequent flights," another source said.
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