An Air India flight travelling from Delhi to Moscow had to return midway from Uzbekistan after the airline’s ground team found out that one of the pilots onboard has tested positive for the coronavirus.
According to the reports, an oversight team of the Air India, while checking pre-flight test reports of crew members had mistakenly read the captain’s positive report as negative and released him for the ferry flight to fly back Indians from Moscow.
The flight was deployed under Vande Bharat Mission to bring back stranded Indians from abroad.
“It was a genuine oversight due to the massive amount of test results that need to be gone through. Delhi base alone sees testing of 300 crew members daily due to which more labs had to be roped in. The volume of tests has meant results come in an excel sheet now. The person checking the test result status of the crew who have tested negative and hence are available for rostering cleared an A320 crew for the Delhi-Moscow flight” said an Air India source.
The Airbus A-320 Neo (VT-EXR) returned to Delhi at about 12.30 pm on Saturday and now the entire crew will be quarantined as per norms. The Air India plane will be sanitised and another A320 Neo to Moscow will be sent later on Saturday afternoon to fly back Indians from there.
“When the A320 plane, which did not have any passengers as it was heading to Moscow to bring back stranded Indians under Vande Bharat Mission, had reached Uzbekistan’s airspace, our team on the ground realised that one of the pilots had tested COVID-positive,” senior Air India officials said.
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