Air India flights have been bringing back Indians stranded abroad over the last few months.
Five pilots, an engineer and a technician of Air India have tested positive for coronavirus, sources in the airline have told NDTV. The pilots were detected after 77 pilots of the airline were tested for the virus yesterday on priority basis. None of the infected pilots have any symptoms and they have been advised home quarantine, the sources said. All of them are from Mumbai.
All five affected pilots have been operating Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The last time any of them operated a flight was on April 20.
Maharashtra already has more than 20,000 cases of coronavirus, which is one-third of the total cases in the country. Of these cases, over 12,000 are from Mumbai.
The national carrier has been operating through the lockdown period, initially rescuing Indians stranded in COVID-19 nations, including Italy and Iran.
Currently they are engaged in ferrying back stranded Indians from various nations in what is possibly the biggest rescue operation since the Gulf war.
The phased rescue-op started from May 7 and the airline is expected to operate 64 flights in the first week to bring back around 15,000 Indians. More than 1,90,000 Indians have registered for the flights back home.
Pilots have been the latest section of frontline workers to be hit by the highly infectious disease.
Around 100 healthcare workers have already been affected by coronavirus, a chunk of them are from Delhi and Mumbai.
More than 500 security forces personnel have also been infected – around 250 of them in The Central Reserve Police Force. Around 200 personnel of the Border Security Force also tested positive. A majority of them have been linked to Delhi.
Two BSF jawans and a Delhi Police personnel who were infected died last week.