WhatsApp message sent as a joke causes 6-hour delay in Mangaluru-Mumbai flight
A flight to Mumbai that was supposed to depart from the Mangaluru airport was delayed by over six hours after a woman caught a glimpse of a “suspicious” text message on a fellow passenger’s phone. The message caused a panic on board the flight, and the IndiGo flight which was going to take off returned to the bay. The flight was allowed to depart to Mumbai only six hours later, after the luggage of all passengers was checked thoroughly.
As per reports, a male passenger was messaging a friend, a woman, who had also boarded a flight to Bengaluru from the same airport. As the plane to Mumbai reached the runway and was about to get ready for takeoff, the woman purportedly sent a WhatsApp message to the male passenger, sitting in the flight, in which she said, “You are a bomber”. A woman sitting next to the man happened to read the message on his phone, and immediately alerted the cabin crew, who informed the Air Traffic Controller. Passengers were reportedly informed of a delay due to a “technical snag”, and the plane was sent to the isolation bay of the airport.
The passengers were made to alight and the man and woman were interrogated for hours, causing both of them to miss their respective flights to Mumbai and Bengaluru from Mangaluru. All the 185 passengers were later reboarded on the Mumbai-bound flight after thorough checking of the baggage, and the aeroplane departed at 5 pm. Mangaluru City Police Commissioner N Shashi Kumar told the media that no complaint was filed over the incident as it was a friendly WhatsApp chat. As per reports, both the woman and man hail from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.