Dhaka bound passenger lands at Bajpe airport, deported

MANGALORE: Boarding a wrong bus or train may not be uncommon occurrence, but an aircraft? In a first, a Bahrain passenger, bound to Dhaka to attend his child's funeral last week, landed at the Bajpe airport here.

Mohammed Alam Mamtazuddin, who was supposed to board the Gulf Air to Dhaka, landed at the six decade old Bajpe airport on May 25, 6.30 pm by the Air India Express flight. The immigration officials, who were informed of this lapse by the airlines, deported him by the next AIE flight to Dubai.

An officer in charge of the immigration was shocked by this incident. ``We have deported or detained people on the basis of fake passports, invalid visa etc. But this is for the first time I'm coming across such a case. How can there be a failure at multiple levels,'' he questioned.

"In case he was an Indian, based on the validity of documents we would have deported or detained him. In case of foreigners we only deport unless there is a notice against that person,'' said the official.

The Indian Airlines management here also is perplexed. ``How can such multiple level checking failures occur? The first mistake occurred during the check-in where the passenger was issued a Bahrain-Mangalore boarding card. But what was the passenger doing? We understand that the passenger was not in a proper state of mind after his child's loss. But how can one miss the announcements? Moreover, the passenger spoke good Hindi. At some point he should have realized that he had boarded the wrong flight - at least by looking at the interior of the aircraft. It is shocking,'' said the AI official.

The air-hostess, he said, could not be blamed because the passenger had the Bahrain-Mangalore boarding card. It is not known who realized the lapse, but it was brought to the notice of the Mumbai AI office by the flight commander half an hour before the flight was to land at Bajpe.

The AI official said the AIE bore full expenses of the passenger's travel from Mangalore to Dubai and Dhaka. "We will be taking up the issue with the ground handling agent,'' the official said adding this was the first time in his service he had come across such a unique and baffling case.

Source: TOI