Agra, Oct 19 (IANS) A day after a chartered US military aircraft was grounded in Mumbai and then cleared to leave, an American official Monday said misunderstanding of call signs led to the incident.
“There was a misunderstanding of call signs. We are thankful to Indian authorities for expediting the matter and our aircraft will be flying (out) Monday. This shows the strength of our relationship with India,” Stewart Kowall, air attache with the US embassy told IANS on the sidelines of the joint India-US air force exercise here.

The aircraft, which was ordered to land by the Indian Air Force (IAF) after a discrepancy in its call sign (identification), was first detained and then cleared by Indian and security agencies Sunday afternoon.

However, on account of a dispute over payment of certain charges to the Air Traffic Control and the airport authorities and other procedural issues, the plane could not take off.

The US consulate in Mumbai finally decided that the 205 marines and crew members onboard would make an overnight halt at Mumbai.

After processing their visa and documents, the marines and the crew checked into Hotel Hyatt Regency adjacent to the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

The aircraft remained parked in a remote bay of the airport since it landed here at 7.52 a.m. Sunday while on a flight from Fujairah (United Arab Emirates) to Bangkok.

The flight was carrying the US marines on a holiday to Bangkok.