216 Air India passengers stranded in Russia’s Magadan - a major transit point of infamous Gulag

The 216 people on board the Air India flight from Delhi to San Francisco that made an emergency landing on Tuesday are stranded in Russia’s remote town of Magadan, a key transit point of the infamous Gulag which was a major instrument of political repression during the Stalin era in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The 216 people on board the Air India flight from Delhi to San Francisco that made an emergency landing on Tuesday are stranded in Russia's remote town of Magadan, a key transit point of the infamous Gulag which was a major instrument of political repression during the Stalin era in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Flight AI173 was diverted to Magadan on Tuesday due to an engine glitch in the Boeing 777-200 LR aircraft.

Air India on Wednesday sent a ferry flight - carrying food and other essentials - to Magadan to fly the passengers bound for San Francisco, who are currently stranded.

Magadan is located on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in northeastern Russia and falls under the administrative centre of Magadan Oblast. The port town is about 10,167 km from Moscow. It takes around 7 hours and 37 minutes to reach Magadan from Moscow by air.

Citing Minister of Transport of the Magadan Region Aleksey Siorpas, Sputnik reported that all the passengers were accommodated at a school near the airport and women with children or pregnant women were accommodated in the dormitory of a medical college in the city.

All of them were provided with meals, and the situation was explained to them, Mr. Siorpas said, adding, however, that the passengers could not leave the premises of their places of accommodation as Russian border guards were with them.

Transport prosecutor of Magadan Region Vitaly Druppov told Sputnik news agency that all the passengers have been provided with warm blankets and meals, adding that the regional and airport authorities have done everything that depended on them.