Air India flight delayed after cockpit punch-up
Another air rage incident has caused the delay of a flight in India, but this time it was not stressed out passengers who were to blame.
An Air India pilot allegedly caused a ruckus and assaulted a ground engineer inside the cockpit as the plane was waiting for clearance to take off.
According to reports, the engineer suffered minor facial injuries that required medical attention after the bust up over a technical issue in the cockpit.
A group of airport engineers also threatened to go on strike after hearing of the incident and demanded action from the police.
After the punch up, the pilot allegedly locked himself in the cockpit.
Reports said Air India has started a probe into the incident and named the pilot as Captain Maniklal Sanghi.
The Chennai-Delhi flight AI 143 carrying 142 passengers took off with a new flight crew around two hours later.
An air safety expert says Indian aviation authorities are not doing enough and should conduct periodic psychological assessment of pilots.
"There have been many instances of violence by crew, but the regulator has not taken action against them. They are back at work after a brief period and we have no proper system to assess the psychological state of pilots unlike those abroad, where medical checks include psychometric tests," said air safety consultant Mohan Ranganathan.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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