An Indian Airlines plane about to take off from New Delhi for Indian Kashmir was surrounded by troops today after a false hijack alarm at the airport, police said.
The plane, with 53 people on board, had taxied to therunway at around 11 a.m (5.30 a.m. GMT) to fly to Kashmir's main city Srinagar when air traffic controllers received a alarm signal from the cockpit.
The Airbus A320 was ordered to park on the side of therunway and encircled by security forces as passengers were ordered off the plane.
"It was a false alarm. The anti-hijacking remote transponder malfunctioned and transmitted signals to the air traffic control," aviation minister Mr Rajiv Pratap Rudy told a news conference, adding there was no pilot error.
The transponder is used to transmit signals at specificfrequencies in case of a hijack.
The reaction to the alarm was swift and the first group of security personnel reached the plane in seven minutes, Mr Rudy said.
The 10-year-old aircraft had joined Indian Airlines' fleet only on Tuesday. The transponder, that came with the plane, is the first equipment of its kind on any Indian jet, Rudy said.
Flights to and from Srinagar are subject to intensesecurity because of fears of hijacks by militants fighting Indian rule in its only Muslim-majority state.
On December 24, 1999, an Indian Airlines flight fromKathmandu in Nepal was hijacked by Kashmiri militants and flown to Afghanistan.
The hijack ended after New Delhi freed three pro-Kashmiri militants from jail in exchange for the passengers. One passenger was killed. After the incident, India further stepped up security at its airports.
Indian Airlines Ltd, one of India's three main domesticcarriers, has a fleet of 39 Airbus A320s, including nine on lease, one Airbus A300 and four ATR-42 planes.