TEAM HERALD
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VASCO: Thick fog followed by Navy flying hours left about 350 passengers of two flights, including Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida, stranded for over five hours at the Dabolim airport on Tuesday morning.
Speaking to Herald, passengers on board the flights informed that both the flights, a Goa-Chennai-Kuwait Air India flight and a Goa-Mumbai Go Air flight, were supposed to depart at about 7 am.
They claimed that both flights were first delayed due to a thick fog and they were then informed that the Navy had allegedly refused permission to the two flights to take-off for some time after the thick fog had cleared.
Vasco MLA and KTC Chairman Carlos Almeida, who was on his way to Mumbai by ‘Go Air’, told Herald that he was proceeding to Mumbai to attend the funeral of Vasco Parish Priest Fr Jose Antonio D’Costa’s brother-in-law.
“The flight ‘Go Air’, which was scheduled to take off at 7 am, was delayed due to a fog. At about 8 am when the flight was about to take off, the Navy objected to it claiming that it was their flying time,” informed Almeida.
“Besides us on ‘Go Air’, passengers on an ‘Air India’ flight were also stranded at the airport and some were patients who had an appointment with doctors in Mumbai, while others were businessmen,” stated Almeida.
“Moved by the plight of the stranded passengers, I contacted Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and informed him about the situation. However, despite a request from the chief minister, the Navy did not allow the flights to take off,” stated Almeida.
“I will take up the issue in the forthcoming assembly session. This is a civilian airport and Navy should have allowed the flights to take off on humanitarian grounds,” added Almeida.
Airport officials told Herald that the flights were delayed due to a thick fog, but they declined to comment on Navy’s refusal to allow the flights to take off.
