Flight Evacuating Indians From Wuhan Made Emergency Landing At Delhi

The special flight of Air India which was deployed for evacuating Indians from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan to New Delhi had made an emergency landing at the airport in the national capital on February 2.

"At 09:35 am, (Air Traffic Control) ATC declared a full emergency for Air India flight, AI-1349, Sector WUHAN/DEL, due to ''shattered cockpit window issue''. The flight landed safely at 09:38 am and was fully parked on a stand," an ATC official told news agency ANI under the conditions of anonymity.

Air India's special aircraft B-747 evacuated total 323 Indians and 7 Maldivian nationals from Wuhan, on February 2.

Air India evacuated a total of 640 Indians from Wuhan, in two separate operations. Unfortunately, one of the aircraft landed in emergency conditions at Delhi's IGI airport on February 2, in the second operation.

"AI-1349 of February 2nd had a windshield cracked during the last stage of flight. An emergency message was transmitted to Delhi ATC for priority landing. At no time was the safety of passengers or aircraft compromised. An auto-landing was carried out on RW-28 with full precautions," Captain Amitabh Singh, director of the operation told news agency ANI.

Captain Amitabh Singh was the in-charge of the evacuation operation.

Coronavirus originated in China in December, last year, and has since then killed 636 people in that country alone, while cases have been registered in several countries across the world, including India.