US says ‘closely monitoring’ after Delhi-San Francisco Air India flight makes emergency landing in Russia

It is worth noting that the Flight AI173 from Delhi was diverted to Magadan in Russia on Tuesday owing to an engine glitch, the Tata Group-owned carrier said in a statement on Tuesday evening. The flight was carrying 216 passengers and 16 crew and did a safe emergency landing in Russia.

Addressing the situation, the State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the country is aware of the emergency landing of the flight and it is monitoring the situation carefully. There has been no information about the exact number of US citizens travelling in the flight at the time of issuing statement.

“We are aware of a US-bound flight that had to make an emergency landing in Russia and are continuing to monitor that situation closely. I’m not able to confirm how many US citizens were aboard the flight at this time,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at his daily news conference.

He also added that since the flight was bound for the United States, hence there are high chances of American citizens being on board. Air India is sending a replacement aircraft to the destination to have the passengers carry on for the set route.

“It was a flight that was bound for the United States. So, it is, of course, likely that there are American citizens on board. There’s public reporting from Air India that they are sending – what my understanding is – a replacement aircraft to the destination to have the passengers carry on for their route, but I would defer to the air carrier to speak to anything further on this,” Patel said in response to a question.