Chennai: Bengaluru MP and BJP Yuva Morcha President Tejasvi Surya is once again in hot water after accusations were made against him that he opened a flight’s emergency exit, causing the takeoff to be delayed.
Tejasvi Surya, the leader of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha and the representative for Bangalore South, is accused of opening the emergency exit of the budget airline IndiGo’s passenger flight on December 10 as the plane was preparing to take off, endangering the safety of the passengers.
Opening the emergency door is a “punishable offence.”
The question of whether IndiGo and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) followed the rule book that states opening the emergency door is a “punishable offence” was raised when Tejasvi Surya, who was travelling from Chennai to Tiruchirapalli for the executive meeting of the Tamil Nadu BJYM with state BJP chief K Annamalai, was permitted to board the same aircraft after an “apology letter.”
Aviation experts also wanted to know how a passenger who endangered other passengers’ safety was released without punishment. And also why it took more than a month for officials to make the incident public. They also recalled that previously, law enforcement officers had cited anyone who had opened the emergency exits.
After former Karnataka cadre IAS officer Sasikanth Senthil asked a question on Twitter about what transpired on board 6E7339 on December 10, the incident, which had been circulating in political circles for a few weeks, came to the public’s attention on Tuesday. “It simply takes a single call from @MoCA (the Civil Aviation Ministry) to put everything to rest?” He wrote, “We might have lost 70 lives.”
IndiGo confirmed the incident but chose not to identify the passenger.
After several hours, DGCA and IndiGo acknowledged the occurrence but declined to name the traveler. The crew did fix the door and perform pressurisation tests before permitting the aircraft with about 70 passengers to take off, according to the DGCA, which also said the crew did so.
As per sources at the Chennai Airport, the subject in question is Tejasvi Surya, and the aircraft was an ATR. “When Surya pressed the lever to open the emergency exit, the flight was ready to take off. The aircraft was delayed by over two hours, and we got off the plane right away, as per passengers. He continued by saying that Tejasvi Surya had expressed regret to the passengers for his behaviour on the bus, where they had to wait for nearly two hours before being allowed to board the plane. Attempts to contact Tejasvi Surya were futile.
As per reports, Tejasvi Surya penned the apology letter while waiting in the bus with the other passengers. He was later given a new seat when he boarded the plane again with fellow traveller Annamalai. Actually, when Surya pulled the lever, the plane was taxiing from the bay to the runway. The flight was examined multiple times while we were in the bus, he stated.
During the boarding process, the customer “accidentally opened the emergency exit,” according to IndiGo, and he apologized for their behavior. According to SOPs, the incident was recorded, and the aircraft carried out the required engineering checks, which caused a delay in the flight’s departure, IndiGo continued.
The flight left two hours late as Tejasvi Surya opened the exit.
The event occurs shortly after allegations that airlines operating in India fail to promptly disclose incidents of passenger safety being compromised.
The passengers were removed from the aircraft soon before takeoff, according to DMK spokesman K T Arasakumar, who was also a passenger on the flight. Although the flight took off barely two hours later, he added, “We did not know what happened.”
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