Air India sends Boeing 777 to bring back nurses from Iraq

[Rahul9090]

NEW DELHI: Air India is sending a Boeing 777 aircraft to bring back 46 nurses and other Indians stranded in strife-torn Iraq.

The Boeing 777, a long-range plane with a seating capacity for about 300 passengers, has taken off from Delhi's IGI Airport to Erbil in north Iraqi region of Kurdistan and is likely to return to Kochi on its way back, civil aviation ministry officials told here.

Air India, which had kept three wide-body planes and crew on standby for evacuation of Indian nationals from Iraq, was awaiting government's instructions to launch the flights.

Besides the Boeing 777, two Boeing 747 jumbos have been kept ready to fly at short notice, they said, adding that cockpit and cabin crew to operate them were also on standby.

46 Indian nurses, who were forced to move out of Tikrit city in Iraq's conflict zone, were on their way to Erbil, a non-conflict area in the country where a team of Indian officials was waiting to receive them. The flight would directly take them to Kochi as most of them are from Kerala.

The nurses were taken by Sunni militants ISIS on Thursday from a hospital basement in Tikrit to an undisclosed location.

There were about 10,000 Indians before the start of the serious strife between government troops and Sunni militants, backed by al-Qaida. The militants have captured two key cities and are marching towards Baghdad.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been displaced in the fighting that broke out on June 10


Air India sends Boeing 777 to bring back nurses from Iraq - The Times of India

 

[$@rJen]

Aren't the nurses are with ISIL militants???? Have we reached a bargain ???

 

[WishLivePak]

a 777???? why not a320??

 

[sancho]

So much for the pointless reports about sending destroyers for evacuation.

 

[janon]

a 777???? why not a320??

I don't think the choice of aircraft is exactly a high priority decision at the moment.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Apparently the plane has been refused landing permission in Erbil, Iraq......

 

[Robin_k]

a 777???? why not a320??

"A Special Air India flight carrying 46 Indian nurses and 137 others from strife-torn Iraq lands in Mumbai at 8:43 am," an Airport official told PTI.

 

[WishLivePak]

"A Special Air India flight carrying 46 Indian nurses and 137 others from strife-torn Iraq lands in Mumbai at 8:43 am," an Airport official told PTI.

a320 fits about 150 in dual class...

Thought there will be more Indians or gov't assumed more will take the flight, as there are still Indians there.

 

[Abingdonboy]

So much for the pointless reports about sending destroyers for evacuation.

The warships are still on standby sir, as are IAF planes (C-130Js and C-17s). There are 10,000+ (some say as much as 18,000) Indians in Iraq still, if a mass evacuation is ordered then India will have to press all the assets it has available into such a mammoth exercise. In this one instance it makes sense to send an Air India flight.

 

[sancho]

The warships are still on standby sir, as are IAF planes (C-130Js and C-17s). There are 10,000+ (some say as much as 18,000) Indians in Iraq still, if a mass evacuation is ordered then India will have to press all the assets it has available into such a mammoth exercise. In this one instance it makes sense to send an Air India flight.

But without a purpose in the evacuation, we are not talking about the LDP, that has the capacity to carry larger numbers of people but als offers a useful number of helicopters. A Destroyer is simply not useful in this role and what makes it more questionable is, that IN can't reach the hot zones in the north, with their helicopters operated from naval vessels. So even if IN would be part of the evacuation operations, the government would have to bring the people down to the south of Iraq first.
IAF's transport aircrafts are another issue, they obviously will stay put and would be used if necessary, but here again, there is no need for them so far, simply because the evacuation is done by civil aircrafts from several airports in Iraq that are in safe zones.

...There were about 10,000 Indians in Iraq before the start of the war between government troops and al Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). With the MEA facilitating the rescue operations, an estimated 7,500 Indians in the non-conflict zones have been evacuated.

600 Indian nationals to return from conflict-hit Iraq by Monday - Hindustan Times


So the whole point of sending a Destroyer there hardly had anything to do with the evacution and the media had just brought it up to make a sensation out of it.

 

[Abingdonboy]

So the whole point of sending a Destroyer there hardly had anything to do with the evacution and the media had just brought it up to make a sensation out of it.

From how I read the news- there are a number of IN vessels who are in the general area either on deployment (anti-piracy) or returning from goodwill visits who have been made ready to go on short notice to Iraq but they aren't exactly sitting off the coast of southern Iraq as we speak.