Calcutta, June 15: An emergency-mode Calcutta airport scoured the sky for a hijacker for more than 20 minutes tonight, unaware that the “culprit” had stationed himself under its nose all the while.

An engineer had activated the hijack alarm in a plane in a hangar by mistake, throwing the airport into a tizzy and sending would-be hijack-busters on a wild goose chase.

Calcutta Air Traffic Control (ATC) activated the emergency drill as soon as it picked up the hijack alert around 8 pm.

Initial suspicion fell on a Kingfisher Airlines flight from Delhi as it was the only blip on the radar.

The flight was already in landing mode when ATC contacted the pilot who said the flight was safe and no alert was issued.

Perplexed officials then launched a hunt to find the source of the alarm. After 20 minutes of search, they came across the plane in an Indian airline hangar.

The maintenance engineer had unknowingly set off the alarm while working in the cockpit.

An official later said the confusion was intensified because of the near-absence of air traffic when the alarm went off.