On Saturday, an Air India flight Airbus A-320 Neo (VT-EXR) from Delhi to Moscow had to return halfway after the airline’s ground team found out that one of the pilots had tested positive for novel coronavirus, said the officials.
A senior Air India official was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India, “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 ground realised that one of the pilots had tested Covid-19 positive.”
“The flight was immediately asked to return. It came back to Delhi at around 12.30 pm on Saturday,” the official added. The pilot and the rest of the crew have been advised to quarantined themselves. Another plane would be sent to Moscow to bring back the stranded Indians, according to the officials.
The total number of positive cases of the novel coronavirus in the country has reached 1,73,763, with a highest single-day jump of 7,964 cases and 265 deaths in the last 24 hours, while the death toll mounted to 4,971, as per the latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.
India has now overtaken Turkey as the ninth worst-hit country in terms of the total number of COVID-19 cases. India’s count of recoveries is the tenth-largest now after the US, Brazil, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Iran, and China.
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