A Boeing 737 belonging to Air India has finally been found after being missing for 13 years - and it turns out it was hiding in plain sight.
The 100-feet long, 30-tonne aircraft turned up at a remote parking bay in Kolkata airport, and has been there since 2012.
Airport authorities have continued to issue parking fines for the plane - something Air India disputed as it has no record of the plane being parked there.
The airline was ordered to pay an astonishing £83,362 - more than 10million rupees - in accumulated parking fees to the airport for the 13-year period.
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It was only when the airport issued a formal request that Air India remove the plane that it was finally found.
The airline originally denied the plane, which had been kept in a very remote area of the tarmac, was even theirs.
The plane, registered as VT-EHH, was removed on November 14 and will be transported to Bengaluru, India, for repurposing as an engineering training aid.
Campbell Wilson, Air India's chief executive, sent an internal message to staff to confirm the missing aircraft had finally been found.
A Boeing 737 belonging to Air India has finally been found after being missing for 13 years - and it turns out it was hiding in plain sight
|GETTY
"Though disposal of an old aircraft is not unusual, this one is – for it’s an aircraft that we didn’t even know we owned until recently!" he said.
"Over time, it was lost from memory and only came to light when our friends at Kolkata airport informed us of its presence in a (very) remote parking bay and asked us to remove it!
"After verifying that it was indeed ours, we’ve now done so – and in so doing removed another old cobweb from our closet."
Air India says the oversight occurred as a result of multiple restructurings.
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The Boeing 737 originally began as a passenger aircraft and was registered with Indian Airlines in 1982.
However, it was then adapted to freight post following Air India's 2007 merger with Indian Airlines.
It was later leased to India Post before being withdrawn from service.
According to Tribune India, the airline's CEO has said the plane was "repeatedly left out of internal records," made worse by the company's privatisation in 2022.
Air India's remarkable missing Boeing 737 marks the 14th abandoned - or lost - plane cleared from a remote area of the Kolkata Airport in the last five years.
Two more aircraft remained unclaimed at the airport.
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