- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Afghanistan airspace has been shut as a result of which no flight can operate from its capital Kabul, officials said on Monday (16). It also means that an Air India plane which was set to fly to Afghanistan to evacuate people will no longer be able to accomplish the task. A notice to airmen (NOTAM) has been issued saying the airspace of Kabul has been closed.
“The airspace is closed. How any airline can operate? We were not able to operate our 12:30 pm flight to Kabul,” an Air India source told Indian news channel NDTV.
ALSO READ: Afghan students in despair as UK pauses scholarships: report
As a result of the shutdown of the airspace, Air India flights coming from the US are also likely to be re-routed, the sources added. Flights AI-126 (Chicago-New Delhi) and AI-174 (San Francisco-New Delhi) will have to come via a Gulf nation to refuel, they said. It was also said that the national carrier was working on new routes for flights that will leave India for the US later.
The Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority has asked all transit aircraft to reroute, saying any transit through the airspace of Kabul would be uncontrolled, Reuters reported.
UK parliamentarians write to Dominic Raab to protect refugees in Afghanistan
Chaos was seen at the Kabul airport as thousands of people rushed in to catch any flight that would take them out of the country as the Taliban took over complete control of the country in the wake of the western troops’ withdrawal.
“There will be no commercial flights from Hamid Karzai Airport to prevent looting and plundering. Please do not rush to the airport,” AFP quoted the Kabul airport authority as saying.
The situation in Afghanistan was of concern with even president Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country and conceding that the Taliban won the 20-year war. As the government collapsed quickly and the extremist group took control of the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday (15), fear and panic spread among the local people.
Anger also poured in over Ghani’s exit from the country.
