‘Sunset Hour’ grounds Jetlite flight

Dibrugarh: Angry passengers bound for Guwahati and New Delhi by a Jetlite flight today created a furore at the Dibrugarh Airport at Mohanbari here, after the aircraft captain refused to carry all of the passengers. The problem started after one aircraft had a flat tyre at the Borjhar Airport in Guwahati today, due to which the Jetlite aircraft from New Delhi to Dibrugarh via Guwahati did not land at Borjhar. The aircraft proceeded towards Kolkata and then took the last lap to Dibrugarh. As the Dibrugarh-Guwahati-New Delhi sector passengers filled the aircraft, the captain asked for disembarkation of 10 passengers. At this too, the captain, for operational security reasons, asked for some more baggage to be taken out from the aircraft. By the time this was done, it was well past 3-45 pm, the ‘sunset hour’ for the Dibrugarh Airport. Technically, no civilian aircraft lands or takes off from the civil airport here after the ‘sunset hour’. This stipulation is laid down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation because the Airports Authority of India has not bothered to upgrade its navigation systems here, to facilitate night operations of aircraft.
After the captain was refused permission to take off for New Delhi by Air Traffic Control, the passengers were off loaded. This led to frayed tempers, with passengers raising anti- Jet and anti-government slogans. Some of the passengers were manhandled by the CISF personnel, leading to an unruly situation at the airport.
11/11/08 Assam Tribune

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Categories: Airports Nov 2008, JetLite Nov 2008