About a month ago, as the sectarian civil war broke out in Iraq, 46 Indian nurses working in the state run Tikrit Teaching hospital in the city of Tikrit, found themselves trapped in the sectarian war. As the news broke in India, there were wide spread demands to bring them back from the war zone, a formidable task by any standards. India's foreign office sprang into action and tried each and every way to achieve this.
Four days back, the efforts bore fruit, as the militants controlling the Tikrit city decided to free the nurses. The nurses were asked to get into the bus and were moved to an undisclosed location near city of Erbil-the Kurdish regional capital. India's foreign office people were already there and were waiting at the border point of Autonomous region of Kurdistan and Iraq. After some confusion and misunderstanding, the nurses finally reached safety, where Indian officials were waiting for them. The nurses along with some other Indians, were planned to be evacuated from Erbil international airport and foreign office had entrusted this task to Air India, India's national carrier.
We
always view Air India in the negative. I have written number of blog
posts about their service, punctuality, dirty toilets and poor cabin
maintenance on board of aircraft and crew lethargy to give good and
efficient service. This time however, the airline really rose to the
challenge and brought the nurses and other Indians safely back home,
a credible feat considering the fact that Erbil airport is located
quite in the vicinity of the war zone. I find the story of how they
did it, really admirable and would like to share it with the readers.
Normally, commercial aircraft do not carry excess fuel because the weight of the fuel, further worsens the fuel consumption of the aircraft during flight. Keeping this fact in mind, Air India officials first checked whether they would be able to refuel the aircraft at Erbil. The initial response of Iraqi authorities was that Air India will have to pay cash for getting the aircraft refuelled there to fly back to India. However minutes later, they changed their stance and said that there will be no refuelling at Erbil as the jet fuel lines were damaged.
This
meant that Air India now would have deploy a long range aircraft and
they decided on Air India's ultra long range Boeing 777-200 aircraft,
fully tanked up with fuel for the rescue operation. The catering for
the return flight was also arranged in Delhi itself. Air India put on
board four experienced pilots — Captains Pankaj Agarwal and Atul
Chandra along with co-pilots S P Sinha and Adhar Puri for the long
journey so that one set could operate on the way out and the other
on the return leg. The aircraft now bearing official flight code
number AI161, finally left on midnight of 4th
July 2014 for Erbil.
The
First crisis came around midnight, when aircraft was eight minutes
away from entering Iraqi airspace and the pilots tried to establish
contact with Iraq. To their dismay, pilots found that Iraqi
authorities had turned down their request to enter Iraqi airspace and
also denied them permission from flying to Iraq. The pilots had to
turn back the aircraft now heading for nearby Kuwait so that they
could later fly back to Erbil in the north. An Air India official
while describing the situation said:
"The
Iraqi ATC was very polite when they informed us of denial of entry
into the country. They said it was a decision by their 'higher up
politicians'. It was later known to us that Erbil authorities were
upset that India had operated this special flight by coordinating
with DGCA in Baghdad,"
As
pilots radioed back this to Air India authorities, alarm bells
started ringing in Delhi. Air India informed about this sudden
development to the Prime Minister's office and external affairs
ministry, who swung into action and Air India flight was given the
clearance finally to fly to Erbil. It landed there at 2.20 am on 5th
July 2014.
Originally
it was planned that the aircraft would fly the return flight from
Erbil directly to Kochi in south India, as all the nurses were from
nearby areas. However considering the logistics, so that the aircraft
would have enough fuel, the original flight route was changed and now
it was decided to fly to Mumbai for which the aircraft had adequate
fuel. Some ground staff from Erbil airport boarded the plane at that
point of time. The pilots asked them whether it was possible to get
the plane refuelled just to be doubly sure on safety side. The local
staffers spoke to some people and told Air India that only a about
3,000 litres could be arranged. The pilots decided to take whatever
fuel was being offered.
As
nurses and some more Indian wishing to return home boarded the plane,
Kurdish authorities were quite amused to see so many people trying to
leave because Erbil is a safe heaven and there are no war clouds over
there. At one point, the local security officer asked Air India
captain, why was he was forcing to take 30-odd Indian-looking people
if they did not wish to go. He had to be explained about the real
situation that the crew and Indian officials were trying to evacuate
as many stranded Indians as possible. After staying on ground for 1
hour, the aircraft took off and on next day (5th
July) the stranded Indians reached home safely, with 46 nurses
alighting in Kochi, 73 stranded Indians in Hyderabad and 56 in Delhi.
Kudos
to the Air India pilots and crew for flying under uncertain
conditions and showing presence of mind to recover from a situation,
where they were denied entry into Iraq. The flight took 15 hours
including 9 hours international flight, before reaching back its
home base of Delhi.
Total
cost of the flight was Rs. 12 million, which will be reimbursed to
Air India by Ministry of External Affairs . Besides this, the
Central government has put in enormous efforts for the release of the
nurses and others from the conflict zone. That also may have cost
substantial amounts.
But
the cost is not important in such issues. What matters is that
Government of India was able to bring back its citizens from a war
like situation. This would boost the confidence of ordinary people
traveling or working abroad, knowing that in case of real
emergencies, Government of India would offer them a helping hand. Air
India is likely to operate more such flights to Iraq in future to
evacuate more Indians depending upon requirement.
7th
July 2014
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