S Lalitha

NEW DELHI: The reason behind the very unusual incident of an aircraft of the Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) from Copenhagen to Mumbai forced to return to its base when airborne near Azerbaijan has just come to light: improper documentation resulted in the authorisation for operations being rejected by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The airline has now announced the suspension of its operations to India till June 16.

In a statement, Spicejet said, “By the time weather conditions improved and the flight was cleared for departure, the operating crew had exceeded the permissible Flight Duty Time Limitations and were therefore legally unable to operate the flight further.” As Jaipur is an offline station for SpiceJet, positioning replacement crew and the necessary operational support from other stations would have taken additional time, it said.