A bus at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport transporting passengers in from Singapore made its drop off at the domestic terminal instead of the international terminal.
You know, that’s kind of problem since there’s no immigration in the domestic terminal and those people could have just waltzed in undocumented into Indonesia.
It was 47 total passengers from AirAsia flight QZ 509 that landed in Bali at 11:45pm on Monday (May 16), according to reports. There had been three total buses to transport the flight’s 155 passengers, but this one bus screwed up royally.
Farid Nugraha, corporate secretary of the airport management company, PT Angkasa Pura I told Detik that it came down to a miscommunication.
“When transporting the passengers of flight QZ509, there was miscommunication between the first bus driver with the flight controller on duty and as a result, 47 passengers from the international flight were directed to the domestic arrival terminal,” Nugraha said.
AirAsia ground handlers and airport security corralled the travelers back onto the bus when the mix-up was known, to take them to the international terminal.
The sad thing is, this isn’t the first time this has happened in recent times—passengers on a Lion Air flight from Singapore were dropped at the domestic terminal in Jakarta just last week.
The incident is being investigated by airline and airport authorities, while both Lion Air and AirAsia are reportedly being investigated by the Ministry of Transportation.
“The driver with initials EL has been questioned. That sort of incident could potentially pose a security threat to the airport and to Indonesia,” Head of the Airport Authority of Region IV, Yusfandri Gona said, as quoted by Tribun Bali.
