The flight operated by Romania’s Legend Airlines carrying 303 Indians which was grounded in France allegedly over concerns that its nearly 300, mostly Indian, passengers were part of a human trafficking scheme landed in Mumbai early Tuesday, according to a report by news agency AFP.
Of the original 303 people on the passenger list, 276 were on the plane that arrived in Mumbai before dawn on Tuesday, news agency AFP said in its report.
French authorities earlier on Monday cleared the flight for departure following the completion of legal formalities, according to a separate report by CNN-News18. Following the completion of legal formalities and clearance, Indian authorities in France thanked French officials for the “quick resolution of the situation”.
The plane, a Nicaragua-bound Airbus A340, was detained last Thursday at Vatry airport, east of Paris, when it halted for refuelling. The flight arrived there from Dubai and authorities in France received an anonymous tip-off that it was carrying potential victims of human trafficking.
The report by AFP said the flight landed at Mumbai’s international airport after a nearly nine-hour flight, around 4:00 am (local time), citing aviation tracking website Flightradar24. It also said, citing French judicial sources, that the authorities there are no longer probing for potential people trafficking but have launched a probe to see if there was violation of immigration laws.
The flight carrying over three hundred fliers, a bulk of them Indians, is now thought to be a “donkey flight”.
The Sunday Times’ Nicola Smith, in her 2014 research paper, ‘Donkey Flights’: Illegal Immigration from the Punjab to the United Kingdom, define ‘donkey flights’ as a term used by immigrants as a “popular route” used by immigrants to enter the UK. This involves a technique where immigrants hop from place to place until they gain entry to the nation they were seeking entry to.
A report by News18 last week said citing top sources in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) that the flight received clearance from a French judge to fly out of the country and the Indian government will decide on further action after the aircraft lands here. The Indian embassy in France thanked French authorities for the “quick resolution of the situation” later on social media site X (formerly Twitter).
The report also said that those aboard the flight were poor villagers from Punjab and Gujarat who wanted to enter the US through Nicaragua, a jumping off spot for the US or Canada for illegally entering these nations after the Mexican side of the US border was closed.
In consular access, it was found that the passengers were mostly Gujarati and Punjabi who were tutored that they were travelling for tourism.
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