Over 250 passengers, most of whom are Indians, have been stuck at the Diyarbakir Airport in Turkey for over 30 hours now, after a Mumbai-bound Virgin Atlantic flight was forced to make an emergency landing there on Wednesday morning.
The flight had left London’s Heathrow airport for Mumbai and was supposed to land at 1.40am on Thursday. However, it was forced to land at Turkey’s Diyarbakir Airport after a medical emergency was reported on board. The A350-1000 aircraft couldn’t take off later as well due to a technical snag, leaving passengers stranded with no end to their ordeal in sight.
The Diyarbakir Airport is a small military airport in south-eastern Turkey with limited facilities, adding to the difficulties of the stuck passengers.
The flight suffered a technical snag after what the airlines described as a “hard landing”. The flight crew was sent to a hotel after deboarding the flight. However, the passengers were restricted to a small area at the airport, an India Today report said.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Preeti Sharma Menon, whose sister and niece are also on the flight, took to Twitter to share that the passengers are stuck without food, usable toilets and phone chargers.
