Akshay Kumar is getting much appreciation for his performance in the latest release “Airlift” which also stars Nimrat Kaur and is directed by Raja Krishna Menon. The movie is based on India’s biggest evacuation operation conducted in Kuwait after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. At that time, nearly 1.70 lakh Indians were left stranded in the war zone. Air India and its staff played a very important role in this operation and here we present you some photos of the same which have been shared by the family of Vijay Nair.
Some important points of this evacuation operation:
- Michael Mascarenhas was the regional director of Air India, Gulf and Middle East at that time; Vijay Nair and Charles Manuel were his deputies.
- The External Affairs Minister of that time, I K Gujral, had a meeting with the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in relation to the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait.
- Both the sides agreed to evacuate Indians through the neighboring country Jordan.
- Officials of Indian embassy sent Indians to Amman through the route of Basra and Baghdad.
- Daily 80 buses were employed to evacuate Indians from Kuwait.
- In the beginning, planes of Indian Air Force were used for the operation.
- Air India was brought into picture as getting clearance for Air Force was difficult.
- 488 flights took off from Amman to Mumbai in a time span of 59 days.
- 300 passengers came in every flight and every day 10 flights took off.
- This is the biggest and fastest operation conducted by any civil aviation till date.
- This operation is included in the books of Guinness Book of World Records.
Below are few pics of this operation:
1
2
3
4
5
6
ADVERTISEMENT
7
