Dubai-India flight: Security breach averted after passengers mistakenly taken to domestic terminal

A massive security breach was narrowly avoided in India as passengers from a Dubai flight were dropped off at the domestic terminal.

On Monday, a group of flyers on an Air Vistara flight to Mumbai were “erroneously” taken to the domestic terminal bypassing customs and immigration clearance, according to the airline.

“Few of our customers, arriving from Dubai to Mumbai on Vistara flight UK 202 on February 4, were erroneously taken to domestic arrivals instead of international arrivals,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

A Dubai resident who was on the plane, said the incident took place because of human error. “When we arrived at Mumbai, the stairs were offered instead of the aerobridge,” said Vinay RS. “Three shuttle buses were deployed and two out of those took us to the domestic arrival gate.”

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He said that once the passengers walked into the terminal, they noticed that they were at the baggage claim. “We usually get the luggage only after immigration,” he said. “So the passengers understood that there was some mistake and immediately alerted authorities.”

Rectifying the situation

Once they realised that there had been an error, officials including those of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) tried to rectify it. “Air Vistara and CISF staff on duty validated all the arriving boarding passes and arranged for the buses to take everyone back to the international arrivals gate,” said Vinay. “There, everyone went through the immigration clearance and then proceeded to the baggage belt.”

Air Vistara said their teams worked with security agencies and the relevant authorities to ensure that the customers were taken to the designated area to complete their arrival formalities.

"We regret the inconvenience caused to the customers, inadvertently,” the statement read. “We are revisiting and further tightening our standard operating procedures to avoid any recurrence.”

According to Vinay, who frequently travels on this route using a different airline, this was the first time such an incident has occurred. He said that the situation didn’t worry him. “It was nothing to panic about,” he said. “Almost everyone was aware that we arrived at the wrong gate and airline staff as well as security quickly resolved it.”

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