Centre closely monitoring situation, in touch with Air India after plane gets stranded in Russia
New Delhi, June 7: After a San Fransisco-bound Air India flight was diverted to Russia's Magadan, the Civil Aviation Ministry on Wednesday said that it is closely watching the developments and that a relief aircraft will depart from Mumbai at 1 pm to take the stranded passengers from Magadan to San Francisco.
Earlier, the replacement aircraft to fly out stranded passengers was delayed as Air India officials are working through regulatory issues in order to operate the flight.
On Tuesday, an Air India flight from Delhi to San Francisco was diverted to Magadan after it developed an engine issue.
Following this, stranded Air India passengers are being housed in dormitories because hotels in the area are unable to accommodate everyone on the flight.
"Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is closely monitoring the situation. We are in touch with the airline," the aviation ministry said.
"Air India is sending a relief aircraft B777-200LR VT-ALF as ferry with men and material on board for recovery of VT-ALH. The aircraft VT-ALF will take passengers from Magadan to San Francisco International Airport. The tentative departure of VT-ALF from Mumbai is today at 1 pm IST."
"Air India has informed us that they're taking care of passengers - local government is helping with accommodation. Passengers have been moved to a school close to the airport. The Indian embassy has also been contacted to provide food & essentials," it added.
The United States has also said that it is "closely monitoring" the situation.
"We are aware of a US-bound flight that had to make an emergency landing in Russia and are continuing to monitor that situation closely. I'm not able to confirm how many US citizens were aboard the flight at this time," said the US State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel.
"It was a flight that was bound for the United States. So, it is, of course, likely that there are American citizens on board. There's public reporting from Air India that they are sending - what my understanding is - a replacement aircraft to the destination to have the passengers carry on for their route, but I would defer to the air carrier to speak to anything further on this," Patel further said.
The Air India plane had 216 passengers and 16 crew members on board.
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- With inputs from agencies
