We were met with silence, says AI crew
NEW DELHI: The last Indian commercial flight to Kabul before operations were suspended had a dramatic landing and take-off, just as fighters belonging to the Taliban were capturing Afghanistan’s capital, taking over the presidential palace and securing the perimeter of the city’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, people aware of the matter said.
Air India Flight 243 took off on time, a little after noon on Sunday, but the ground reality changed in just the two hours that the plane took to reach the Afghanistan airspace. Just as the crew prepared for landing and the pilots tried to coordinate with Air Traffic Control, it got no reply. “Zero reply. We were just met with silence,” said one of the crew members, who asked not to be named. According to another, there was no other aircraft in the vicinity and the pilots had no choice but hold their descent into Kabul. In the meantime, other airlines were directing their pilots to turn around and not land in Kabul. Several airlines, including United Airlines and British Airways, stopped Afghanistan operations on Sunday. Lufthansa, KLM and Air India stopped their operations on Monday after the war-torn country’s civil aviation authority issued NOTAMs or notices to airmen, closing its airspace to all civilian flights.
AI 243 stayed in the hold position for over an hour on Sunday. “The flight had holding fuel for 10 to 12 minutes,” an official said.
Unknown to the pilots, the Taliban had reached the gates of Kabul and were preparing to take over the presidential palace.
In the hour of silence from the air traffic controller, American troops were operating their helicopters to evacuate their staff out of their embassy in Kabul. They were also helping Ghani flee, people aware of the developments said. After the hour passed, the Americans took over the air traffic control and AI 243 finally got a reply: they could land but after the Americans had airlifted their envoys out of their embassy.
After Air India finally managed to touch down on Kabul’s runway, the airport neither had ground handling staff nor security personnel, the AI crew members quoted above said. . The flight needed to refuel for its journey back to Delhi, they added. The turnaround flight took three hours to depart the Taliban-controlled country.