NEW DELHI:
An Air India flight from Milan to Delhi on Thursday returned to the origin airport after a passenger on board attempted to force open the cockpit door. An Air India official said, an unruly passenger, Gurpreet Singh, tried to enter the cockpit after takeoff from Milan. The aircraft with 250 passengers on board, landed back in Milan and Singh was handed over to the local police.
However, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was fuelled up for an 8-hour flight to Delhi, and therefore the captain had to dump fuel mid-air to reduce the weight of the aircraft for a safe landing. Once the passenger was handed over to the local police, the flight took off after around two-and-a-half hours.
It could not be ascertained whether Air India would officially file a complaint against Singh and put him on the no-fly list. No-fly list was introduced last year to debar unruly passengers from flying on receiving a complaint from the pilot-in-command. The incident is then referred to an internal committee, which within 30 days of the complaint decides whether to put a passenger on the no-fly list. So far, only one passenger who flew on a Jet Airways flight has been put on the list.
