Panic gripped the airport in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal on 8 September as an airline staffer misheard the word 'ballast' as 'blast'.
At around 9:30 am, IndiGo airlines' ticketing counter at Raja Bhoj International airport received a call regarding ballast in an Agra-bound flight. The staffer thought the call was regarding a "blast" and called the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee.
The confusion was subsequently cleared up. Airport personnel said that the person who received the call had recently joined the job, and so got confused.
Ballast is a term referring to the placing of extra weight on an airplane. This is done in case the number of passengers are insufficient for the plane to maintain balance in the air.
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