NEW DELHI, June 7 (Xinhua) -- India's flag air carrier Air India said on Wednesday it will be sending a replacement plane from Mumbai to ferry stranded passengers from its U.S.-bound flight that made an emergency landing in Russia over an engine snag.
A Delhi-San Francisco flight of Air India with 216 passengers and 16 crew members on board was Tuesday forced to land at Magadan airport in the far east region of Russia after one of its engines developed a snag.
According to Air India, the replacement plane would be carrying food and other essentials for the stranded passengers.
"A ferry flight is scheduled to operate to GDX (Magadan, Russia) from Mumbai India (BOM) at 1300 hours (local time) today, subject to necessary regulatory clearances, which would take passengers and crew of AI173 onward to San Francisco," Air India said in a statement.
Air India has not provided details of the technical snag.
"Given the infrastructural limitations around the remote airport, we can confirm that all the passengers were eventually moved to a makeshift accommodation, after making sincere attempts to accommodate passengers in hotels locally with the help of local government authorities," Air India said. ■
