Air India flight to ferry stranded US-bound passengers in Russia

A ferry flight will depart from Mumbai for Russia's Magadan to take stranded Air India passengers to San Francisco, Air India said in a statement.
This development comes after an Air India flight which was headed to San Francisco from New Delhi, was diverted to Magadan on June 6 after a technical issue with one of its engines. The ferry flight will also carry food and other essentials for the passengers.

The flight with 216 passengers and 16 crew was diverted to Magadan, Russia (GDX), where it landed safely.
"All of us at Air India are concerned about the passengers and staff and are making every effort possible to operate the ferry flight as soon as possible, and to ensure the health, safety, and security of all while they wait," Air India statement said.
"We can confirm that all passengers were eventually moved to a makeshift accommodation, after making sincere attempts to accommodate passengers in hotels locally with the help of local government authorities," Air India statement added.

Earlier, the United States also said that it is continuing to closely monitor the situation of the flight divert incident.
Principal Deputy Spokesperson, for the US Department of State, Vedant Patel has said, "I'm not able to confirm how many US citizens were aboard the flight at this time. It was a flight that was bound for the United States. So, it is, of course, likely that there are American citizens on board." 

Addressing a press meeting, Patel added: "As you probably also saw, there's public reporting from Air India that they are sending a - 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."