"A Buddhist monk who boarded the flight, IC-727, was innocently fiddling with the over-wing window latch. It was just by mistake that his handling of the latch loosened the emergency door and the alarm bell inside it went off.
"The aircraft was in the parking bay then. The captain halted the take off process," an AI spokesperson said. He said the flight to Yangon via Gaya, carrying altogether 139 passengers, was about to take off at 10.10 am on Monday morning. "Later, the aircraft was thoroughly examined and no technical snag was found.
"We're trying to ensure that the aircraft takes off this evening itself. But as there's no night landing facility at Gaya airport, we're taking sometime to calculate everything. In case the flight fails to take off today, it'll head for its destination on Tuesday morning," the official said.
Published 23 November 2009, 13:29 IST