Increasing the tempo of its operations to fight the corona pandemic, the IAF in the last two days carried out more than 150 sorties ferrying oxygen containers and medical supplies.
As part of the ongoing effort, the IAF on Friday also flew supplies to Lucknow to set up a hospital for Covid-19 patients there. “The Indian Air Force (IAF) is continuing to carry out sorties from within India and abroad to cater to the requirement of oxygen in the country, amid the current COVID-19 situation,” said the defence ministry.
Giving details of the last few days, they said on Thursday the IAF carried out 23 sorties from abroad, airlifting 39 oxygen containers with 670 metric tonnes of capacity, while from within the country, it carried out 124 sorties, airlifting 87 containers with 1,798 metric tonnes capacity.
On Friday, the IAF airlifted eight oxygen tankers from Singapore to the Panagarh airbase in West Bengal. “Two C-17 aircraft are airlifting eight oxygen tankers from Singapore to Panagarh. The task is in progress,” an official statement noted.
The IAF is also conducting multiple domestic flights to transport oxygen tankers and oxygen plant equipment within the country. Two oxygen tankers each were taken from Chandigarh to Bhubaneswar, from Agra to Ranchi, Gwalior to Raipur, Indore to Surat and from Chandigarh to Ranchi, and one from Vadodara to Ranchi on Friday.
Moreover, six oxygen tankers were taken from Hindon to Ranchi, two were taken from Jodhpur to Jamnagar and two from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar.
The transportation of oxygen tankers from one place to another within India was done with the help of the C-17 aircraft, the statement added.
“An IL-76 aircraft is airlifting three oxygen plant equipment from Delhi to Dimapur and Army load of 15.3T with 53 medicos for setting up of COVID hospital at Lucknow,” it noted.
In a related development, a 57 member Naval Medical Team consisting of four doctors, seven nurses, 26 paramedics and 20 supporting staff was deputed to Ahmedabad. The team will be deployed at the ‘PM Cares Covid Hospital’, a special hospital set up to manage the Covid crisis.
As part of its efforts to fight the pandemic, the Navy launched Operation Samudra Setu-II for shipment of Oxygen-filled Containers to India.
Mission deployed Indian Naval warships will undertake shipment of liquid Oxygen filled cryogenic containers and associated medical equipment in support of nation’s fight against COVID-19.
Two ships INS Kolkata and INS Talwar have entered port of Manama, Bahrain* for embarking and transporting 40MT of liquid oxygen to Mumbai. INS Jalashwa is enroute to Bangkok and INS Airavat to Singapore for similar missions.
Meanwhile, the Army on Friday stepped in and eased the oxygen shortage in Agra to some extent by repairing a non-functional oxygen plant there.
A technical team from the Army on April 27 identified a big crack and several leakages in the air separator unit. Over twelve hours, the team dismantled and welded all the cracks.
Another critical component was required to generate oxygen. An Air Force aircraft flew in the component from Ahmedabad on the midnight of Thursday. Further process to fit the component and make the plant operational was completed on emergency basis and the plant made fully operational by midnight on Friday, officials said. The plant is expected to fill over 1,500 oxygen containers.