More than three years after the privatisation of Air India, an unusual chapter in the airline’s history resurfaced, an aircraft no one remembered existed.

Last week, the Tata-owned carrier finally sold a Boeing 737-200 that had been grounded for over a decade and left out of records.

The cargo aircraft, decommissioned in 2012 for India Post operations, had been sitting for years at a remote parking bay of the Kolkata airport. Its presence was flagged only recently, prompting the airline to trace its ownership.

Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson explained the discovery in a message to employees. “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!” he wrote.

The aircraft, registered as VT-EHH, was delivered to Indian Airlines in September 1982. After its lease to Alliance Air in 1998, it returned to Indian Airlines as a freighter in 2007, before being absorbed into Air India following the airlines’ merger that year.

It had been out of operation since.

Wilson detailed how the aircraft simply faded from institutional memory. “Many years before privatisation, this aircraft had been decommissioned in order to operate for India Post and was omitted from many documents,” he said.

Its rediscovery was accidental. “Over time, it was lost from memory and only came to light when our friends at Kolkata Airport informed us of its presence in a (very) remote parking bay and asked us to remove it! After verifying that it was indeed ours, we've now done so - and in so doing removed another old cobweb from our closet!” he added.

According to planespotters.net, VT-EHH was more than 43.2 years old at the time of its sale.