50 passengers left on the tarmac by Go First plane, regulator investigting

The Go First service to Delhi departed leaving a bus load of passengers behind. Photo / Praveen Thirumurugan, Unsplash

The Indian aviation regulator is looking into an incident which saw a bus load of passengers left behind on the tarmac by an over-hasty Go First service departing for Delhi.

On Monday the service from Bengaluru City Airport left 50 passengers behind, forgotten in a transport bus from the gate.

Passengers with checked luggage and boarding passes in hand said they were dumbfounded as the plane they were trying to board left without them.

Another link bus was able to reach the plane and embark its passengers.

One of the travellers due to be flying on G8 116 said they were left on the bus for almost an hour when it dawned on them they were going to miss their flight.

Some passengers were told the plane would be back to collect them, adding to the confusion.

“The ground staff was checking whether the flight took off,” Sumit Kumar, one of the travellers, told local news network NDTV. “Initially, they said the flight will return.”

Go First, previously Go Air, has apologised to affected travellers via Twitter, but has yet to give further details as to the cause of the incident.

The airline later told the Deccan Herald newspaper that the error was being “investigated” but declined to give further comment.

India’s Directorat General of Civil Aviation said that they had “sought a report from the airline and will take appropriate action”, in a statement to news agency PTI.

This is the latest high profile incident being investigated by India’s civil aviation body.

Last week the pilots and crew of an Air India service were struck off for their mishandling of an incident in which a drunk business class passenger allegedly urinated on a fellow passenger, a 72-year-old woman.

Although the incident took place in late November it was only this year that it had been brought to the attention of the DGCA.