Mangaloreans at Bajpe Airport were terrified and bamboozled by the news of a fire setting off in one of the airport’s planes.

The announcement made by a famous television channel that the tail of the IX 811 Mangalore Dubai-bound Air India plane is on fire and that fire tenders are rushing to contain the crisis stirred up horror in the city’s residents depriving them of the week-end spirit.

However, the Air traffic control (ATC) sources at Bajbe’s Airport confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the plane during the take off, and that although the take off was delayed by 20 minutes, the flight still took off with 130 passengers on board.

The rumor was triggered when the plane returned back to the airport after 11 minutes of its take off, as the pilot reported a minor technical problem that required an engineer to step in.

The news of the minor technical hitch was fed by the news channel into a fire eating away the plane and endangering the passengers.

Seemanth Kumar Singh, Mangalore Police Chief, and M. R. Vasudeva, Airport General Manager announced to the public that the fire alarm was just a rumor, and that the whole fuss was unnecessary.