Tension stayed with captain, “There was no panic or fear among passengers,” Dr. Amalendu Bhattacharjee

When Captain Siddharth Ghosh was in panic-stricken ‘Save Our Souls’ mode in mid-air after discovering smoke coming out of the aeroplane, all the boarders in the Air India AI754 were calm, there was no panic, no worry among the passengers, as nobody could imagine how dangerous the situation could turn in a blink of an eye.

“I noticed a bit of unusual noise during the take-off but didn’t pay any heed to it. Soon there was a smell of something burning around, I never had that smell before while aboard an aircraft. It was a bit odd; I was feeling tense. After a while the announcement was made, ‘The plane is making an emergency landing at Kumbhirgram Airport due to technical fault,’” this is how Dr. Amalendu Bhattacharjee, renowned author, academician of Barak Valley shared his rare experience of the emergency landing.

Dr. Bhattacharjee was sitting on seat number 20C, and he informed that there was no panic and disturbances among the passengers inside the flight. It took a while to get off the flight, but he couldn’t see anything serious. 

“As the flight made an emergency landing at Kumbhirgram Airport, we guessed something might have gone wrong. We could not feel anything even during the landing. Generally, the plain taxi a good distance in the run-way after landing, but that time it was stopped with a sudden unusual jerk,” Dr. Bhattacharjee said.

 “We didn’t realize that the flight was cancelled even after the emergency landing; we were made to sit at a place and were asked to check out after 10 minutes. We were being served with tiffin, and another 20 minutes later, our luggage arrived, then we were informed that the flight was cancelled,” he added. 

Dr. Bhattacharjee lauds the efforts of the captain. “While the captain was making all the difficult decisions and dealing with a live smoke, he did not let the tension transfer to the 144 passengers on board. He did not even let us realise that there is something so huge happening around us.”

The AI754 aircraft had departed from Silchar for Kolkata on the morning of November 10. Around 15 minutes after takeoff, it suffered a hydraulic leakage in the landing gear. Captain Siddharth Ghosh spotted smoke and initiated an emergency landing.