Air India flight to Moscow returns after pilot found Covid-19 positive

In a serious lapse of protocol, state-owned airline Air India was on Saturday forced to call back an aircraft mid way after it was found that one of the pilots operating the plane had tested positive for coronavirus during his pre-flight medical test.

In spite of testing positive for coronavirus, the pilot was rostered for flight, operated the aircraft for almost three hours when an official from the airline’s rostering team, double checking the pilots’ medical records, found that he was positive.

The Airbus A320 aircraft, which departed around 7.15 am for Moscow to bring back a group of stranded Indians under the Vande Bharat evacuation mission, was back in Delhi by 12.30 pm following orders from the authorities, officials said.

The plane with registration number VT-EXR and having only the crew members was in the airspace of Uzbekistan when it was told to return. It was a ferry flight and was supposed to bring back stranded Indians from Moscow.

 

A spokesperson for the airline confirmed the incident and said that all the four pilots and 10 cabin crew of the flight have been asked to quarantine themselves for 14 days. The airline has also announced a probe into the incident. Aviation regulator DGCA has also ordered a probe. “Prima facie it appears to be a lapse. We will investigate,” DGCA head Arun Kumar said.

Captain RS Sandhu, Air India’s executive director of operations, refused to comment on the issue.

The oversight raises serious questions on the operational preparedness of the airline which has been at the forefront of operating evacuation flights to bring back Indians stranded abroad. Executives of Air India blamed the high number of Vande Bharat flights the airline was forced to operate without much time for preparedness. “The number of flights for Vande Bharat Mission was increased suddenly and new destinations added. Some of the destinations included places where the airline had never operated flights to. All these had to be organised basically in 48 hours. This increases strain on the system and increases chances of such goof ups,” said an Air India executive.

Ever since domestic operations started on May 25, Air India has been operating around 30 flights daily.

According to the SOP for Vande Bharat mission, a crew has to undergo five days of quarantine after operating a flight. “So when there are increasing number of flights and simultaneous quarantining of crew, it becomes a nightmare for the rostering department to manage resources and that’s when such mistakes happen,” the airline official said.

 

The airline, till May 26, has operated 242 flights from more than 47 countries. Some of the destinations include Dushanbe, Yerevan, Almaty, Lagos, Minsk where Air India has never had a flight in its history.

While 142 had been planned for the second phase, after a meeting of civil aviation ministry and external affairs ministry, the number was increased to 173.

However, a senior official of the civil aviation ministry said that schedules of Vande Bharat mission are only approved after getting a go-ahead from Air India management. “We always have and will be consulting the management of Air India before planning such flights. The number of flights is fare lesser than the number of international flights that the airline operates in normal times,” the official said.