More than 250 passengers on a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Mumbai have been stranded at a remote military airport in Turkey for nearly 40 hours.
Virgin Atlantic flight VS358 departed London’s Heathrow airport at 11.40am BST on 2 April and was scheduled to land in Mumbai at 8.10pm BST.
However, the plane made an unscheduled landing at the Diyarbakır airport in Turkey at around 5pm BST due to a medical emergency onboard.
“The VS358 flight from London Heathrow to Mumbai on 2nd April was cancelled due to an urgent medical diversion to Diyarbakir airport in Turkey and subsequent technical inspections required”
Virgin Atlantic
After the emergency landing, the Airbus A350-1000 (registration G-VTEA) encountered a technical issue as it had made a “hard landing” and was deemed unfit to fly.
The airline said the flight would resume its onward journey to Mumbai from Diyarbakır at 10am BST on Friday.
“With the necessary technical approvals now in place, we will continue flight VS1358 from Diyarbakır Airport at approximately 12:00 local time on Friday 4th April, arriving in Mumbai at approximately 20:30 local,” it said.
Many passengers expressed frustration and distress over the situation on social media and said they were being confined to a restricted area of the airport with limited facilities.
