A passenger was apprehended and handed over to airport police after a handwritten hoax hijack threat delayed an Air India flight from Kolkata to Mumbai for more than seven hours on Wednesday, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said.
The incident involved Air India flight AI 2772, which was scheduled to depart at around 10.30 am from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport. According to the AAI, a cabin crew member found a note inside the aircraft’s lavatory at about 10.37 am warning that the plane would be hijacked at 11.10 am.
The discovery triggered mandatory security procedures. All 105 passengers were deboarded and the aircraft was moved to an isolation bay, where security agencies conducted thorough checks, officials said. The flight eventually departed for Mumbai at 5.38 pm after the prescribed procedures were completed.
The episode shows how a threat discovered inside an aircraft can immediately shift an ordinary departure into a wider airport-security operation. The response involved removing passengers from the aircraft, relocating the plane to a designated area and carrying out checks before the flight could be cleared to operate.
The AAI said the threat was subsequently declared a hoax. The passenger was handed over to the NSCBI Airport Police Station in connection with the incident. The authority did not provide further details in the release about the passenger’s identity, the circumstances in which the note was written or the sections under which the police action was taken.
For passengers, the incident resulted in a lengthy delay between the scheduled departure and the eventual take-off. The flight’s movement was held until security agencies completed the required checks, reflecting the operational priority given to any potential threat inside a commercial aircraft, even when it is later found to be false.
The police process at the airport will determine the next action in the case. The AAI’s account identified the note, the security response, the passenger handover and the flight’s eventual departure, but did not disclose whether any further investigation or prosecution had been announced.
