Chandigarh: Air India Delhi-Kabul flight AI 243 last Sunday — among the last scheduled commercial services to the Kabul airport before the city fell to Taliban — was met with radio silence on approach. Piloted by Captains Aditya Chopra and Ashutosh Ahlawat, the Airbus A320 with 40 passengers on board kept hovering around the besieged city while waiting for clearance to land from the air traffic control (ATC). An Emirates Boeing 777 from Dubai was also holding at 28,000 ft near Kabul around the same time. It headed back to the UAE without landing in Kabul.
Sources say the crew on board was unaware of the events unfolding on the ground. “When the aircraft was holding over Kabul, the ATC stopped responding. It was not before well over an hour that the crew was given the go-ahead to land,” say sources.
“Possibly there were no air traffic controllers at Kabul ATC at that time. The pilots had no clue what to do and where to go. Since the approach to Kabul is busy, they had to be vigilant for other aircrafts amid the ATC’s radio silence,” say sources. AI 243 finally landed in Kabul after 2 hours and 13 minutes at 1.33 pm (local Kabul time). An event-free flight takes just under an hour.
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association, union of erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots, has applauded the crew operating AI 243/244 last Sunday. “We salute the dedication of our Air India of AI 243 (Captains Aditya Chopra and Ashutosh Ahlawat), who went beyond the line of duty, amidst tension and turmoil to bring our citizens back home safely from Kabul. Jai Hind,” it had tweeted.
The 162-seater A320 was fully booked on the return flight to Delhi as AI 244. But only 129 passengers managed to reach the airport. This was possibly the last scheduled flights out of Kabul. AI was the only Indian carrier with scheduled flights to Kabul. The next day, non-defence aircraft were barred from Afghan airspace.
22/08/21 Times of India
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