Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 20: A Jammu bound Spicejet flight from Srinagar was diverted to Amritsar after it could not land here due to some exercise by the Indian Air Force, here today.
The flight number 852 kept hovering on the Jammu Airport for around 20 minutes before being diverted to Amritsar Airport where it remained stranded for over an hour.
It reached Jammu around 4.30 pm, four hours late than the scheduled time thus resulting into much inconvenience to 180 passengers on the board.
The flight, which was scheduled to reach Jammu at 12.30 noon, took off from Srinagar Airport at 1.30 p.m, more than one and half hour late than the scheduled departure. It reached Jammu around 2 p.m but was not signaled to land resulting that the plane kept hovering above the airport for around 20 minutes after which the passengers were informed that the flight was being diverted to Amritsar due to some technical snag.
According to one of the passengers on board, the plane remained stranded for about an hour at the Amritsar Airport where refueling was also done.
Even as Airport authorities and the Spicejet management were tightlipped over the cause of diverting the Jammu bound flight to Amritsar and thus causing delay to the passengers on board, sources said that the trouble erupted due to an exercise of the Indian Air Force.
“There was no technical snag but an exercise by the IAF that forced the plane to keep waiting for landing before getting diverted to Amritsar,” sources informed adding that refueling was required due to un-necessary hovering for 20 minutes over Jammu airport.
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