Passengers Refuse To Fly In Sweltering Cabin — Then Chant “Stop Playing With Our Lives”

Passengers aboard SpiceJet flight SG105 from Delhi to Pune forced the aircraft to return to the gate Tuesday night after the cabin became unbearably hot, people struggled to breathe, and the airline prepared to take off anyway. According to reports, “A potential major accident was averted due to the alertness of passengers.” The flight was scheduled to leave Delhi Terminal 1 at 9:55 p.m. With air conditioning wasn’t cooling the aircraft. After about half an hour, passengers were soaked with sweat, children were crying, and pregnant women and elderly travelers were becoming ill. Delhi – A potential major accident was averted due to the alertness of passengers on a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Pune after the aircraft developed a technical issue.After passengers boarded the plane, the temperature inside the cabin suddenly rose. Everyone, including elderly… pic.twitter.com/lsgV1eygvR — NextMinute News (@nextminutenews7) August 12, 2026 Video shows passengers standing in the aisle and fanning themselves with magazines and menu cards. One person is being fanned by other passengers. A pregnant woman was reportedly close to fainting and was eventually returned to the terminal in a wheelchair. Passengers crowded around the forward door and demanded to be released. One man threatened to break the door open. A flight attendant correctly explained that the stairs had already been removed, so opening the door would have left an unsafe drop to the pavement. Passengers initially assumed the cabin would cool once the engines were running and the aircraft began moving. Instead, they say it taxied toward the runway for another 40 to 45 minutes while conditions deteriorated. That doesn’t sound quite right to me. My first assumption was that the issue was the plane’s auxiliary power unit wasn’t working to provide air on the ground, and ground air wasn’t separately supplied. But the plane should cool once the lane’s engines are running (so would begin cooling during taxi). It’s possible that an airconditioning pack, pneumatic valve or related system actually malfunctioned. The plane may not have ‘taxied’ for 45 minutes, just may have sat after pushback for a long period, and it’s not clear that it was sitting with engines running for that period. Passengers say that the captain and airline employees threatened to call police when passengers refused to sit down and allow the flight to continue. The aircraft ultimately returned, everyone was deplaned, and maintenance inspected the aircraft. They say engineers confirmed the plane wasn’t airworthy. SpiceJet acknowledges that SG105 “encountered a last-minute technical issue” and that another aircraft had to be substituted. Yet the airline also insists: “The air conditioning remained operational throughout. Due to prevailing weather conditions in Delhi, some passengers may have experienced discomfort.” I guess air conditioning can ‘operate’ without providing cooling. And Deli is hot! It was enough of an ordeal that passengers protested on the apron even after leaving the aircraft, chanting for SpiceJet to shut down and stop playing with their lives. A replacement Boeing 737 MAX 8 departed more than seven hours late. Several reports are that the passengers’ intervention “averted a major accident.” I see absolutely no evidence of that. They were potentially just in for a miserable flight, and one where people were already becoming ill, and hardly for the first time on this airline and route. In March, more than 150 passengers spent about two hours aboard a scorching hot aircraft and SpiceJet claimed at the time also that the air conditioning “remained operational throughout” and blamed Delhi weather. In June, passengers on another Delhi-Pune flight complained of suffocation after sitting without cooling before being deplaned. And last month on a different route 150 passengers spent three hours in a sweltering SpiceJet aircraft before that flight was cancelled. The airline should do better at this point than “some passengers may have experienced discomfort.” Topics on this page