A passenger, who spotted the lizard, shared a post on LinkedIn and brought attention to the issues of passenger safety and social sensitivity after a lizard caused significant disruptions on the flight.

Consequently, the pilot announced that the flight would take off only after the ground staff gave their clearance. The flight scheduled to reach Ranchi at 3.55 pm was still grounded at the airport.

After nearly two hours, the Indigo authority deboarded all the passengers. Facing ordeal, they underwent a fresh security check. No staff or authority was available to confirm the timing for the next flight, reports stated.

Sharing about the troubling incident on LinkedIn, Sanjeev Varshney, a Professor of Marketing at XLRI shared: “Are Indians socially responsible? Today (1st Sep) my wife and my 12-year-old son boarded an IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) flight from Mumbai to Ranchi. While boarding my son and wife saw a black color lizard in the plane. After taking their own seat (some 7 seats behind the seat on which they saw the lizard) my wife informed the air hostess about the lizard. To which she told my wife, “Madam, please do not talk about it or else it will create panic.”

“She has informed the ground staff and said they will take care of it. Let the boarding happen. My wife did not speak about it. After some time the ground staff came and took my wife out of the plane and asked about the complete incident. They asked my wife to sit in row one as against her pre-allocated seat in row 32. The ground staff came with some brooms and buckets etc to catch the lizard along with some spray as well. Even after a lot of effort I could not catch it. Finally, they arranged for another plane and asked everyone to deboard,” he added.

Despite the flight crew’s assurances, the lizard was not caught promptly. The ground staff boarded the aircraft, removed Varshney’s family, and attempted to capture the lizard using brooms, a bucket, and a spray. Their efforts were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the airline decided to cancel the flight and arrange a replacement, leading to the deboarding of all passengers.

During the deboarding process, Varshney reported that many fellow passengers directed angry comments towards his son. Some criticized the child for causing the delay, while others questioned why they could not tolerate a lizard, suggesting that it was no different from having a lizard at home.

“While deboarding many co-passengers started abusing my son. They were saying how can somebody be afraid of a lizard and because of him the flight got delayed. Many were saying there are lizards at home as well do you vacate the house because of them. The staff did not want to take a chance and just requested people to deboard and asked my wife to ignore these people. My son has been feeling victimized since then. My complaint was, how can a lizard enter an aircraft, why was boarding permitted even after my wife reported about it? Finally, how insensitive are people, they are not bothered that during the flight if a lizard starts running here and there will it not create panic among people. How can they blame my son? India become sensitive and socially responsible to others,” Sanjeev Varshney concluded.

The Indigo arranged an alternative flight, which finally took off for Ranchi at around 6.45 pm.