Gulf prince’s gifts fail to take off from Mumbai

Mumbai: A bag containing gifts meant for a prince of the UAE and valued at Rs80 lakh went missing from Etihad flight EY 205 from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi on December 3.
The passenger, who has only been identified as al-Amir, checked in with nine bags for the flight which left at 11pm, said a source at the airport, who asked not to be identified. On reaching Abu Dhabi, the passenger, said to be a family friend of the prince, realised that one bag was missing. That was the very bag containing the valuables.
Amir lodged a complaint with the airline, which is trying to investigate the matter on its own and has not yet filed a police complaint.
An official said there are two possibilities where the bag might have been stolen - on the tarmac after the check-in baggage is put on the conveyor belt and taken to the aircraft’s hold for loading, or after the luggage was unloaded at Abu Dhabi.
Airline employees in Mumbai pored over the video recordings of closed-circuit cameras near the baggage screening area but failed to find anything. According to an airline official, who refused to come on record, in one section of the screening area, there was only one functional camera, with the other having been removed for repair. And the functional camera does not record.
14/12/07 Naveeta Singh/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007