A comedy of errors turned into a tragedy for 298 passengers of Air India’s flight to New York, via London, on Wednesday morning. They were left stranded at the Indira Gandhi International Airport after the crew refused to take off, saying their duty hours are over.

Non-availability of hotel accommodation and the small transit lounge made matters worse, as passengers spent over 17 hours at the airport.

The drama began with two passengers of the flight AI-111 refusing to fly after they claimed to have spotted a fuel leakage during refueling at the IGI airport. The passengers claimed the aircraft was not safe for flying — the flight had landed from Amritsar and was due to take off for London at 7.20 am.

The two first-class passengers claimed that they saw oil seeping out of the airplane during the refueling process. “We did try to convince them there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, and that we can fly,” an Air India spokesperson said. “But they refused; they wanted to disembark.”

Up next, a female passenger in business class reported sick — she, too, requested to be offloaded.

“We lost a couple of hours in convincing the three passengers, and then in offloading their luggage,” the A-I spokesperson said.

This, the official said, ate up the crew’s operation time. Air India rulebook says a crew is not allowed to fly after exceeding operational time of 11 hours and 30 minutes.

The Air India staff then went on a hunt for an alternate crew. Officials said they were trying to get them fly in from Mumbai.

To further multiply the problem, flights cannot land at London airport after 6 pm GMT. “That meant we could not fly beyond 11.30 am even if the crew came in,” the spokesperson said.

The flight’s 298 passengers were left to squeeze themselves in the limited area of the transit lounge — food and beverages were delivered at the transit lounge itself. “No room was available at any of the Delhi hotels, including the Centaur, which is owned by Indian Airlines,” the airlines spokesperson said.