When British Airways made ex-SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya sleep on carpet

The emergency landing of a Mumbai-London British Airways flight in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, led to ordeal for all passengers. And among the passengers was former State Bank of India chief Arundhati Bhattacharya.

According to reports, Bhattacharya was not just stranded for 19 hours, but had to even sleep throughout the night on a carpet on the floor of a waiting room.

The reason for the emergency landing of the flight was smoke detected in the first class cabin of the British Airways flight.

The flight, BA198, was rerouted to Baku 'squawking 7700'. That's aviation code for when the crew of a flight declares an emergency and requests immediate assistance from all air traffic control centres in the region.

A trace of the flight path on flight-tracking site Flighradar showed BA198, a Boeing 777-300 ER, departing from Mumbai, flying into Pakistani airspace over Balochistan, entering Iranian airspace and issuing the emergency call just as it was about to leave Iranian air.

While the British Airways has claimed that the stranded travellers were provided all assistance, people onboard the flight later said that they were neither given any food nor basic medicines.