New Delhi: “Saal Baad Bee, Ya Bees Saal Pehle?” Taliban militia images took control of Kabul earlier this week leaving Devi Sharan, the captain of Indian Airlines India who was hijacked by IC 814 in December 1999, wondered when he witnessed the incident open on TV.
Because there was no change in visuals now from what he remembered to see through the cockpit Airbus A300 who was hijacked which remained parked in Kandahar for almost a week.
“They roamed the open jeep with rocket launchers on the streets of Kabul, as they did when they surrounded our planes in Kandahar.
As if nothing has changed,” Captain Sharan (59), who recently retired Air Indian FOM , tell Toi.
What Taliban is like? Sharan, a national hero who remained calm during the chaotic days, considering an incident to describe it.
“On the second or third day in Kandahar, a diabetes passenger was very sick.
The Taliban took him to the hospital at our request.
This passenger returned to the plane on the same day as the hospital situation was very bad and he did not feel safe there,” he said .
Captain SPS Suri, who traveled with A320 A320 help airbus A320 from Delhi to Kandahar with the negotiators and additional crew members on December 26, 1999, had spent the night again there after the crew and passengers left the night on December 31.
He was abandoned with Captain JRD Rao and two engineers to fly back A330 who were hijacked.
“Hamara Commander Bolta Hai Hum Nahin Jaane Denge did not have an ism in Hamara oak Tohfa Nahin Utaroge.
Cargo holding Kholo ‘,” Captain Suri reminded the Taliban told him.
There is a bag in the cabin where valuables are taken from the passengers saved.
Suri thought they were talking about the bag.
They, instead, the power opened the aircraft cargo and took a particular check-in bag from there.
“It might have an explosive time for the millennium blown up at the end of Kandahar airport.
We can hear a hard boom,” Suri said.
On the morning of January 1, 2000 – by the Taliban let the hijackers go – Captain Suri said he wanted to leave but was rejected permission to take off.
After landing in Kandahar, Suri (64) – who tried again from AI in 2014 and now flew with Spicejet – and 25-30 other crew members used to sleep on the A320.
But on December 31, the plane took off for Delhi and slept in a hijacked A300 that had a foul smell at that time it was impossible for four crew he was left behind.
“Taliban said the rooms at the Kandahar Airport were taken by hijackers and fills.” They allowed our four of the night spending the night with a campfire on the veranda.
“We shivered there.
‘Sardar, Badaam Kha Le.
Raat Jayegi’, Taliban leader Mullah Omar told us while giving us four almonds,” Suri said.
The next morning (January 1), the air traffic controller told the four member crew that they would not get permission to go to India.
“The aircraft battery is at 7%.
Taking the name of the teacher, we started one machine and miraculously came alive.
When taxis, we started another machine.
ATC keeps telling us that we don’t have permission to take off but we also,” said Suri.
Pakistan ATC warns the plane does not have permission to be excessive.
And the IC 814 crew was bound by Delhi – a delayed flight in Aviation – continued to say they could not hear anything.
“The best thing we heard is the IAF controller that tells us ‘Welcome home, you are cleaned directly to Delhi,’ just before entering the Indian airspace,” recalled Suri.
He was married in the summer of 1999 and had operated Sharjah-Calicut-Mumbai-Delhi flights on December 26 when asked if he would be on the plane to Kandahar to fly back the A300 hijacked.
“I said yes at the airport myself because I feel my family won’t let me do it if I go home,” Suri said.