NEW DELHI: Air Indias second evacuation flight flew in 323 Indians and seven citizens of Maldives from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, to Delhi on Sunday morning. The total number of people brought in the two flights is 654 — 647 Indians and seven foreigners. The jumbo jets used for this special operation, Ajanta and Agra, are now being fumigated and will be used for regular commercial flights after they are fully disinfected.
With both these aircraft being over 25 years old, AI took critical spare parts like tyres on the flights from Delhi with engineers to minimise the chance of their getting grounded there for technical reasons. Captain Amitabh Singh, AIs director (operations), was on both the back-to-back flights to supervise the evacuation. He and another AI employee, Sanjay Gupta, were the only two people on both the flights. “Flying into Wuhan on the first flight was like witnessing apocalypse. As soon as we exited the international overflying routes in China to head to Wuhan, there was no other air traffic there at that time. On landing, we saw planes parked with their engines sealed off. It was eerie,” Singh told TOI.
The airlines control centre in Delhi was constantly tracking the flights. WithRead More – Source
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