Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has ordered a probe after video of an Instagram influencer, Bobby Kataria, smoking inside a SpiceJet aircraft went viral. Bobby Kataria is a bodybuilder with 630K followers on Instagram.
Taking note of the video, Jyotiraditya Scindia said, "Investigating it. There will be no tolerance towards such hazardous behaviour."
Investigating it. There will be no tolerance towards such hazardous behaviour.
— Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) August 11, 2022
A video is making rounds on social media in which Bobby Kataria can be seen lighting a cigarette inside an aircraft and taking a couple of puffs.
— Umesh Kumar (@Umeshnni) August 10, 2022
"Balvinder Kataria travelled from Dubai to New Delhi on a SpiceJet flight. He landed in Delhi on 23.01.22. Video isn't available on his Facebook/Instagram page. Action was taken by aviation security earlier," the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security told news agency ANI.
A SpiceJet spokesperson said that the matter has been investigated in January 2022 when the video was brought to notice.
"This is with reference to a video on social media of a passenger smoking onboard a SpiceJet aircraft. The matter had been investigated thoroughly in January 2022 when the video was brought to our notice and a complaint had been filed by the airline with the Udyog Vihar police station in Gurugram. The video, the investigation had revealed, was shot on 20th January 2022 while passengers were boarding flight SG 706 scheduled to operate from Dubai to Delhi. The said passenger and his co-passengers shot the video on the 21st row when the cabin crew were occupied with completing the on-boarding procedure. None of the passengers or crew was aware of the act. The matter came to the airline’s notice on January 24, 2022 through social media posts," a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
"The matter was referred to the Internal Committee constituted as per the provisions of Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) on handling of unruly passengers (not consisting of any SpiceJet employee). The said passenger was put on a no flying list by the airline for 15 days in February 2022," the statement further read.