Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s flight Thursday to Copenhagen – for the UN climate summit - has been delayed by a couple of hours after an oil tanker hit his plane during refuelling.
A hydraulic trolley carrying food items for the VVIP
Boeing 747-400 plane hit the cargo door of the aircraft around
1230 hours causing a minor damage. Neither the Prime Minister
nor any other passenger was on board the aircraft.
It was expected to take off at 3 pm but its departure has been delayed till 5.30 pm.
Although the sequence of events is not clear, but as per available inputs, an oil tanker accidentally hit the plane during the refuelling process and has caused a dent on one side of the VIP plane.
"The technical team is looking into the matter. It is a minor hitch and they want to take extra precautions," said a PMO official.
A standby Air India aircraft of the same class was got
ready that finally took off with the Prime Minister and his
official entourage 1745 hours against the scheduled departure
of 1445 hours.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who rushed to the
airport on learning about the incident, said a high-level
inquiry has been ordered into the mishap in the technical area
of the airport.
He told reporters that both the Directorate General of
Civil Aviation and Air India would conduct an inquiry.
Manmohan Singh`s official team is a compact one comprising eight members including Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and the Prime Minister`s Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran, besides other senior officials.
High level inquiry ordered into PM aircraft mishap
A high-level inquiry has been
ordered into the mishap involving Prime Minister`s special
aircraft at the technical area of the airport here and an Air
India loader has been suspended.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who rushed to
the airport on learning about the incident, told reporters
that both the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Air
India would conduct an inquiry.
He said preliminary inquiry has found that the Air
India loader was operating the hydraulic lift carrying food
items that hit the cargo door of the Air India Boeing 747-400.
"Let the full inquiry report come. Then we will know
whether there was anything mala fide in this," he said adding
the loader has good experience of having done work relating to
several VVIP aircraft.
"After all we are all human," he said.
The departure of the aircraft, which was to take off
at 1445 hours for Copenhagen, was delayed by about three
hours.
