Erect trolley towbar tears into Haj plane engine cover

The Maharaja’s huge payload carrier — Boeing 747-400 — was grounded on Monday after the engine cowling (cover) under a wing, was extensively damaged by a cargo trolley’s ‘erect’ towbar. While this is the sixth such incident on the tarmac at the airport here this year, it meant that 421 Jeddah-bound Haj pilgrims had to wait for 12 hours before Air India could arrange a replacement flight.

The incident, which has been termed as a freak accident, has highlighted an undercurrent of negligence in ground-handling operations at the airport. On Monday, even as all the Haj pilgrims had completed their pre-flight formalities and were awaiting the boarding call, the plane was parked in bay 30. In the adjacent bay, handlers were busy loading cargo on to a Sri Lankan airways flight parked there. At 7.57 am, a tractor was brought and attached to the Boeing’s nosewheel to push in back, after which it could be piloted to the contact track for passengers to board. Airport sources said engineers in the cockpit of the plane had given the go-ahead for the tractor to move.

Unnoticed by either of them was a luggage trailer that was parked beyond the bay’s designated space. “It appears that the trailer was erroneously parked inside the AI aircraft’s bay,” said Airport Director H S Suresh.

To make matters worse, the solid-metal towbar that connects the trailer to the tractor, was left upright and stood at an angle of 90 degrees. “When the plane began moving back, the rod pierced the engine’s cowling and damaged it. As the plane kept moving, the rod dug deeper before the luggage trailer overturned,” said an airline source.

This was when the engineers noticed the damage and stopped the plane. Though the airline brushed it off as a “minor scratch”, AAI insiders said the damage could be extensive, necessitating expensive repairs.

Suresh said a DGCA probe has been ordered and the airline asked to wait and not assess the damage until the team from Delhi arrives.

The pilgrims were accommodated on another flight that arrived from Mumbai and left at 7.15 pm.