india

Updated: Jun 18, 2019 17:43 IST

Three crew members on-board a Mumbai-Allahabad flight on Monday evening were injured when the aircraft encountered air turbulence.

All 150 passengers on IndiGo flight 6E 5987 escaped unhurt. The flight took off from Mumbai at 11.30 am and was scheduled to reach its destination at 1.30 pm. The Airbus A320neo plane hit turbulence when refreshments were being served halfway through its 716-miles-long journey.

A senior airline official said that the 3 crew members who suffered minor injuries were given first aid and flown back to Mumbai as passengers on the return flight.

An IndiGo spokesperson confirmed the incident, “An IndiGo flight 6E 5987 flying from Mumbai to Allahabad on 17 June 2019 experienced turbulence en route, which unfortunately resulted in minor injuries to our cabin crew. They were given first aid on landing. This led to a delay in the subsequent flight 6E 5986 which departed at 2000 hours.”

The 6-hour delay in the return flight left passengers complaining, “We were initially told that our flight is delayed by 45 minutes but we boarded the plane only around 7.10pm,” said Nirmal Kumar, a passenger booked on the return flight to Mumbai.

“The airline did not tell us the reason for the delay. However, it was only through a ground staff that I learnt about the incident,” he added.

A South Mumbai resident, who did not wish to be named, said, “The airline staff did not communicate messages properly to the passengers. Once they announced that the flight would be cancelled. Due to this, many passengers chose not fly with them. It was only after sometime that they informed us that the flight would take off by 8.30 pm.”

IndiGo started operating the Mumbai -Allahabad flight in April this year and it is the only one between the cities.