An Emirates Boeing 777-300, which is worth $375 million at list price, remains stranded at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport two days after Israel launched a major offensive on Iran, which has been dubbed Operation Rising Lion.
The 13-year-old aircraft (registration: A6-EGE) departed Dubai International Airport at around 2:27 am on June 13, bound for the Iranian capital, hours after Israel had already started its attack on the country.
The airplane, with as many as 354 passengers onboard, flew for nearly two hours across Iran as Israeli warplanes engaged various targets throughout the country before landing in Tehran at around 3:44 am.
Data supplied by the flight tracking website Flight Radar 24 shows that the regularly scheduled flight departed Dubai as flight EK977 and was due to leave Tehran around an hour and a half later as flight EK978.
The return flight never took off.
Several hours after the flight was canceled, Iran issued a ‘Notice to Airmen’ or NOTAM, suspending all commercial flights until further notice. Airspace throughout the country remains closed.
Although there had been talk of Israel launching an attack on Iran in the days before Operation Rising Lion commenced, the Israeli government did not provide any prior warning to airlines to avoid Iranian airspace.
While some airlines have been avoiding flights over Iran for some months, many carriers were caught off guard and had to get airliners to divert only after Israel’s attack had started.
On Saturday, Israel targeted Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, which serves domestic flights, although local officials said that the strike had been limited to a hangar used by the Iranian air force.
There have not been any reported attacks on the main Imam Khomeini airport.
Despite the closure of Iranian airspace, Flight Radar 24 reported several unscheduled departures from Tehran that did not carry callsigns. The flight tracking service suggested that these planes were being moved to ‘safer’ airports away from Israeli attack.
Matt’s take
My take as a serving flight attendant: Suddenly, being a flight attendant for one of the largest international airlines in the world doesn’t seem quite so appealing when you are thrust into the middle of a war zone.
I can only imagine the horror that the crew must have felt when they realized that a late-night ‘turnaround’ flight was going to end so badly. This is a worst-case scenario situation that just shows the risk of operating flights in this region.
I’ve reached out to Emirates to find out whether the crew was safely evacuated, but I’ve yet to receive a response.
