The passengers were inside the plane since it landed in Dhaka at 4 am.
The IndiGo flight which was forced to land in Bangladesh's Dhaka on Saturday, finally reached its destination in Guwahati, 12 hours after it took off from Mumbai on Friday night. The diverted flight had landed in Dhaka at 4 am due to low visibility caused by dense fog at the Guwahati airport, the airline said.
Former Mumbai Youth Congress chief Suraj Singh Thakur, who was one of the passengers on the flight, shared the news in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "Finally landed in Guwahati. After a 12 hour flight, I would have hoped to reach Europe but I'm happy to be in Guwahati. Mera Desh Mahaan. Thanks
@IndiGo6E," he quipped.
Earlier, in a statement, IndiGo said flight 6E 5319 was diverted due to bad weather and the passengers, who were still inside the landed plane, were kept informed about the updates and were given refreshments. "An alternate set of crew is being arranged to operate the flight from Dhaka to Guwahati," the statement said, apologising for the inconvenience.
However, several passengers took to social media to share their frustration over the long wait after the abrupt diversion. In a post on Saturday morning, Mr Thakur claimed the passengers have been inside the plane for nine hours, adding they had landed in Bangladesh without passports.
Another flier, in a post on X, said the 178 passengers had been waiting for over four hours for another crew to fly them back to their destination.
"IndiGo6E stuck inside aircraft with 178 passengers for 9 hours now, flying 6E 5319 from Mumbai to Guwahati. We made a landing in Dhaka around 4am because of lower visibility in the North East. We have been waiting for another crew for 4 hours now, can we please expedite?," he wrote.
According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the IndiGo flight was scheduled to take off from Mumbai at 8.20 pm on Friday and land in Guwahati at 11.10 pm. But the flight departed from Mumbai at around 11.20 pm, after a delay of three hours.