NEW DELHI: Memories of the December 1999 Kandahar hijack came alive at Delhi Airport on Saturday afternoon when the captain of an Afghan airliner taxiing to fly to that city was briefing his co-pilot what to do in the event the aircraft is hijacked. The Ariana Afghan Airlines commander was doing so as he had reportedly been informed about a hijack alert here.What was supposed to be just a practice exercise in the cockpit ended up as a real scare as the captain of FG-312 actually sent a distress message of being hijacked to Delhi air traffic control (ATC) that activated emergency response at IGIA. The Airbus A-310 with 124 passengers (including an infant) and nine crew members was asked to immediately stop from proceeding for take off and instead told to taxi to an isolation bay at the airport around 4pm.Once there, it was surrounded by a team of security men from agencies like the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). The pilot told security team that he had sent the message by mistake. However not willing to take any chances, CISF sanitised the aircraft and frisked everyone who was to fly on the aircraft.The flight’s Captain Rokai Naimi submitted a written note saying: “Today our staff in Delhi informed us that there are plan of hijacking aircraft. In cockpit I briefed my first officer that if hijacking (occurs) we just (take steps in that event which are not being disclosed for security reasons)… Regarding this code we should be careful…But it was to(o) late, the Delhi ATC got it… It (happened) while briefing. It is not true.”CISF and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security said the Captain had pressed the hijack button by mistake. Once cleared by security, flight FG-312 took off from Delhi at 5.41 pm, almost two hours behind its schedule departure time of 3.30pm.BCAS chief Kumar Rajesh Chandra said: “The captain said his airline staff in Delhi had informed him about plans to hijack the plane. He committed the mistake of inadvertently pressing the hijack button.”A senior pilot, who had watched the Indian Airline Kandahar hijack from close quarters, said: “while what happened on Saturday was a mistake, it was good see that the plane was not allowed to take off and asked to taxi to a parking bay,” reviving the old debate on how that crisis might have turned out had the plane not been allowed to take off from Amritsar for Kandahar in the fateful December of 1999.