Forgotten for 13 years: Air India sells a plane it never knew it owned

An internal post from Air India CEO Campbell Wilson revealed a story that sounds like something out of an aviation urban-legend, except it’s true.

Last week the carrier completed the sale and transfer of a B737-200 (registration VT-EHH) that had been sitting, grounded and largely forgotten, since 2012. The twist? The airline says it didn’t even know the plane officially belonged to them until airport staff in Kolkata pointed it out asking the airline to remove the plane.

"Though disposal of an old aircraft is not unusual, this one is – for it’s an aircraft that we didn’t even know we owned until recently!," Wilson said.

How a plane vanished from the books

According to Campbell Wilson's post, VT-EHH had been decommissioned years ago to operate for India Post and through a chain of paperwork oddities was omitted from many official documents during privatisation. Over time it slipped from the organisation’s institutional memory and ended up parked in a "very remote" bay at Kolkata Airport.

Airport colleagues flagged its presence, asked the airline to remove it, and after a verification process, the sale and transfer was completed last week. He cheekily called it "another old cobweb removed from our closet."