Now that’s a quite funny story. The fuselage of an ex Air Sahara Boeing 737 being transported on a trailor to Delhi, is stuck on a lane in Mumbai, because the driver of the trailor was given a wrong direction, came to a dead end and apparently cannot be turned around on this narrow lane with garages and small shops.
“It was such a shock to find it there when I came to open my shop in the morning,” said Parminder Kaur, whose Laxmi Medicals now stands in the generous shadow cast by the tail of the Boeing.
The plane is not only lost but orphaned. Local residents said that the three men with the trailer fled the scene when angry shopkeepers heckled them. “It has nowhere to go from here as the whole thing is 75 feet long and cannot be turned around or brought back to the highway in reverse,” said Gurvinder Singh, who runs an auto workshop on the road.
But as always in Mumbai, there is opportunity even in adversity. Keenly aware of the predicament of the Delhi buyer of the fuselage, scrap dealers from nearby Govandi have already started recceing the site to size up the cargo and sniff out a possible deal.
Obstruction though it clearly is, the Boeing has certainly spiced up the daily routine of local residents. It’s a curiosity for schoolchildren who stare at it and ask hopefully if they will be allowed a joy ride.
This particular plane has been something of a problem child. Last year it was stuck on a Mumbai runway, blocking air traffic for five days. This time it has held up road traffic for three days. The rest of the plane has already been broken into 1,700 pieces and sold to a US-based company for an undisclosed sum.
Full story: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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