Air India on Wednesday sent a replacement plane from Mumbai to Magadan, Russia (GDX), to ferry 216 stranded passengers and 16 crew members from a US-bound flight after its plane made an emergency landing on Tuesday. The plane carrying food and other essentials will arrive in Magadan on Thursday morning.
According to Air India, the ferry flight finally took off from Mumbai for Magadan in far east Russia at around 1520 hours on Wednesday to fly its 216 San Francisco-bound passengers stranded in the port city since Tuesday. “Our ferry flight AI195 from Mumbai (BOM) to Magadan, Russia (GDX) is now airborne, and is expected to arrive at GDX at 0630 Hours (local time) on 08 June 2023,” Air India said in a statement. It said that a team from the airline is also on board the flight to provide any support that the passengers and staff at GDX may require. The ferry flight is carrying essentials in addition to a sufficient amount of food to cater to all passengers on the onward flight scheduled from Magadan (GDX) to San Francisco (SFO), Air India said.
Magadan is located on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in northeastern Russia and falls under the administrative centre of Magadan Oblast. The port town is about 10,167 km from Moscow. It takes around 7 hours and 37 minutes to reach Magadan from Moscow by air.
Meanwhile, the diversion of the Boeing BA.N 777 widebody aircraft comes amid a global debate over the use of Russian airspace by some carriers, with the chief of United Airlines UAL.O warning on Monday of the dangers of a plane being forced to land in Russia with American citizens on board. Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday assured safe return of San Francisco-bound passengers stranded in Russia after an Air India flight made an emergency landing there and said a ferry flight has already departed from India.
The US State Department said it was keeping an eye on the situation, with the Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel saying that it was likely that there were U.S. citizens on board the flight. “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,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at his daily news conference.
“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 said in response to a question.
Meanwhile, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson defended the airline’s use of Russian airspace on Monday, noting the critical role the industry plays in connecting economies, people, and cultures. Air India flight AI173 with 216 passengers and 16 crew was diverted to Magadan, Russia on Tuesday due to an engine glitch in the Boeing 777-200 LR aircraft.
Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday assured safe return of San Francisco-bound passengers stranded in Russia after an Air India flight made an emergency landing there and said a ferry flight has already departed from India. “We have a Boeing 777-200 that took off at 1 pm...The flying time is around six-and-a-half hours, it will land there and take on board all passengers and fly to San Francisco safely,” Scindia told reporters.
Air India in its earlier statement had said that all the passengers and crew were provided “hotel accommodation”.
On Wednesday it said that “infrastructure constraints” have forced it to lodge them in make-shift accommodations despite “making sincere attempts to accommodate passengers in hotels locally with the help of local government authorities”.
It also said that Air India does not have a staff based in the remote town of Magadan or in Russia, and the support that is being provided to the passengers “is the best possible in this unusual circumstance”.