NEW DELHI: “Bees saal baad, ya bees saal pehle?” Images of Taliban Militia that took control of Kabul earlier this week released hijacked captain Devi Sharan Indian Airlines In December 1999, IC 814 was surprised to see the events happening on TV. Because after looking through the cockpit of an Airbus A300 parked in Kandahar for almost a week, there was no change in the scenery.
“They are roaming the streets of Kabul in open jeeps with rocket launchers, just like they did when they surrounded our plane in Kandahar. It was as if nothing has changed,” Captain Sharan (59), who recently retired from Air India, told TOI.
How were the Taliban? National hero Sharan, who remained calm during those tumultuous days, recalled an incident to describe it. “On the second or third day in Kandahar, a diabetic patient became very ill. At our request, the Taliban took him to the hospital. The passenger returned to the plane the same day as the condition in the hospital was very bad and he was not feeling safe there.
Captain SPS Suri, who traveled IA Airbus A320 On 26 December 1999, a relief flight from Delhi to Kandahar with a team of interlocutors and additional crew members spent another night there after the departure of the crew and passengers on the evening of 31 December. He was left behind along with Captain JRD Rao and two engineers. To fly back the hijacked A330. “Our commander speaks to us” nahin jaane denge tak We will not get one gift out of this. Open the cargo hold’, recalls Captain Suri telling the Taliban to him. There was a bag in the cabin in which valuables taken from the passengers were kept. Suri thought they were talking about that bag.
Instead, he forcibly opened the aircraft’s cargo hold and took a special check-in bag from there. “It was probably explosive time for the Millennium that exploded at the far end of Kandahar airport. We could hear a loud boom,” says Suri.
On the morning of 1 January 2000 – when the Taliban let the hijackers go – Captain Suri said he wanted to leave but was not allowed to take off. After landing in Kandahar, Suri (64) – who retried from AI in 2014 and now flies with SpiceJet – and 25-30 other crew members slept in the A320. But on December 31, that plane took off for Delhi and sleeping inside the hijacked A300, which by then smelled terrible, was not possible for the four IA crew left behind. “The Taliban said that the rooms at Kandahar airport were taken by hijackers and” theirThey allowed the four of us to spend the night lighting a bonfire in the verandah. “We were there shivering. ‘Sardar, eat almonds. Raat will be spent’,” said Suri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, giving us four almonds. said.
The next (January 1) morning, an air traffic controller told the four-man crew that they would not be allowed to leave for India. “The plane’s battery was at 7%. We started one engine, chanting Wahe Guru’s name and it miraculously came to life. Getting out of the cab, we started the second engine. NS atc Keep telling us that we didn’t have clearance to fly but we got airborne anyway,” Suri said.
Pakistan ATC warned that the aircraft is not allowed to overfly. And the crew of IC 814(D) bound for Delhi – a delayed flight in aviation parlance – kept saying they were unable to hear anything. Suri recalled, “The best thing we heard was that the IAF controller cleared us for ‘Welcome home, you straight for Delhi’ just before entering Indian airspace.”
They married in the summer of 1999 and operated a Sharjah–Calicut–Mumbai–Delhi flight on 26 December when asked if he would be on a plane to Kandahar to fly back the hijacked A300. Suri said, ‘I said yes at the airport itself because I felt that if I went home, my family would not allow me to do this.
“They are roaming the streets of Kabul in open jeeps with rocket launchers, just like they did when they surrounded our plane in Kandahar. It was as if nothing has changed,” Captain Sharan (59), who recently retired from Air India, told TOI.
How were the Taliban? National hero Sharan, who remained calm during those tumultuous days, recalled an incident to describe it. “On the second or third day in Kandahar, a diabetic patient became very ill. At our request, the Taliban took him to the hospital. The passenger returned to the plane the same day as the condition in the hospital was very bad and he was not feeling safe there.
Captain SPS Suri, who traveled IA Airbus A320 On 26 December 1999, a relief flight from Delhi to Kandahar with a team of interlocutors and additional crew members spent another night there after the departure of the crew and passengers on the evening of 31 December. He was left behind along with Captain JRD Rao and two engineers. To fly back the hijacked A330. “Our commander speaks to us” nahin jaane denge tak We will not get one gift out of this. Open the cargo hold’, recalls Captain Suri telling the Taliban to him. There was a bag in the cabin in which valuables taken from the passengers were kept. Suri thought they were talking about that bag.
Instead, he forcibly opened the aircraft’s cargo hold and took a special check-in bag from there. “It was probably explosive time for the Millennium that exploded at the far end of Kandahar airport. We could hear a loud boom,” says Suri.
On the morning of 1 January 2000 – when the Taliban let the hijackers go – Captain Suri said he wanted to leave but was not allowed to take off. After landing in Kandahar, Suri (64) – who retried from AI in 2014 and now flies with SpiceJet – and 25-30 other crew members slept in the A320. But on December 31, that plane took off for Delhi and sleeping inside the hijacked A300, which by then smelled terrible, was not possible for the four IA crew left behind. “The Taliban said that the rooms at Kandahar airport were taken by hijackers and” theirThey allowed the four of us to spend the night lighting a bonfire in the verandah. “We were there shivering. ‘Sardar, eat almonds. Raat will be spent’,” said Suri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, giving us four almonds. said.
The next (January 1) morning, an air traffic controller told the four-man crew that they would not be allowed to leave for India. “The plane’s battery was at 7%. We started one engine, chanting Wahe Guru’s name and it miraculously came to life. Getting out of the cab, we started the second engine. NS atc Keep telling us that we didn’t have clearance to fly but we got airborne anyway,” Suri said.
Pakistan ATC warned that the aircraft is not allowed to overfly. And the crew of IC 814(D) bound for Delhi – a delayed flight in aviation parlance – kept saying they were unable to hear anything. Suri recalled, “The best thing we heard was that the IAF controller cleared us for ‘Welcome home, you straight for Delhi’ just before entering Indian airspace.”
They married in the summer of 1999 and operated a Sharjah–Calicut–Mumbai–Delhi flight on 26 December when asked if he would be on a plane to Kandahar to fly back the hijacked A300. Suri said, ‘I said yes at the airport itself because I felt that if I went home, my family would not allow me to do this.
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