Rebuffing Air India’s attempts at a cover-up, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Saturday disclosed that a dummy stun grenade was found on board an Air India jumbo plane when it landed at Jeddah in the early hours.
The stun grenade, which had no explosive in it, was found on the upper deck business class of the Boeing 747-400, which was operating flight AI-965 on Mumbai-Hyderabad-Jeddah route, sources said, adding that the aircraft was taken to a remote bay, checked by the local security personnel and granted operational clearance.
“The grenade may have remained after the mock drill… It has BSF markings,” Raju said at Vizianagaram. The security drill was carried out by the NSG between September 24-27 at select airports and aircraft across the country.
Terming the incident as “unacceptable”, he said though there was no threat to passengers, “there is some failure and this lapse may not be condoned. Corrective measures have to be taken.”
His statement came hours after an Air India press release said, “After screening the aircraft and the object which was found to be a plastic wrapper, the Jeddah airport security cleared the aircraft for further operations.”
A joint team of Air India and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, which was rushed to Mumbai this morning, was investigating the incident and questioning those concerned in order to fix responsibility, said sources.
According to sources, just before landing in Jeddah, a box, wrapped in plastic, rolled out from beneath one of the business class seats. The cabin crew saw it and immediately informed the pilot who informed the Jeddah Air Traffic Control. On landing, the pilots were asked to take the plane to a remote bay where the security personnel took out the grenade and found it did not have any explosive, the sources said. The grenade carried markings like “Anti-Riot Stun Grenade”.
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