deventhakkar

Hello there, flyer talkers!

It's been almost fifteen years since Indian Airlines Flight IC 814, an Indian Airlines Airbus A300B2-101 registered
VT-EDW was hijacked in Indian airspace in between Kathmandu, Nepal and New Delhi, India. After a long overnight flight through Friday, December 24, 1999, the Airbus finally landed at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan at 0855 IST. After a week of negotiations, the hijacking ended peacefully on December 31, 1999.

My question is what exactly happened to the aircraft, VT-EDW itself AFTERWARDS when the hijacking ended. How did they get the Indian Airlines plane out of Kandahar and towards New Delhi and eventually to Mumbai? Did they have to make repairs and renovations to it? Did it return to service with Indian Airlines? And most of all, can anyone confirm if it has been broken-up and scrapped because on planespotters, it says "Scrapped" but on other sites it says "Stored". Also, where is the location as to where this aging Indian plane has been stored (or scrapped)?

lo2e

FYI, I've alerted a mod to move your post to the India-Based Airlines forum (which seems to be the most sensible place to move it to).

angatol

.....

deventhakkar

I just found out why IA sold the hijacked A300 VT-EDW to another buyer. They considered it uneconomical to fly because they found cracks on the plane. It was an ageing A300 so after it was repaired, it was scheduled to leave the fleet.

ashishp

This was ages back, but last I heard was a certain celebrity pilot was to fly VT-EDW to somewhere in Ireland. I am guessing that was the final resting place?

oliver2002

I remember flying on EDW between BOM and CCU sometime after the hijack. It was a ratty A300 just like the other ones, you wouldn't have noticed its past. IC retired it just like the other first gen A300s it had. From airfleets.net I read that it was traded in with Airbus.

deventhakkar

Do you think IA would want to make repairs and renovations to VT-EDW if, let's say they were planning to retire their A300 fleet in 2009/10?

deventhakkar

Or in 2011?

ashishp

Are you sure about this? FWIK this bird was cleaned up after being flown to BOM by Capt.Nivedita Bhasin - but was then put on active standby duty primarily because it was considered jinxed. It has been used on sub duty only twice flying back pax from CCJ and MAA when other A300's went tech.

oliver2002

Pretty certain. My father had booked me onto IC in January (just to annoy me, since I was a big 9W fan at the time) and we were bussed to the aircraft and I noticed the tail registration.

deventhakkar

OK, so you flew on that aircraft, VT-EDW in January 2000. Was it just like all the other IA A300s? Specifically what was the cabin like when you boarded the plane?

oliver2002

Just regular IC of that time, didn't notice anything unusual.

Keyser

an employee in my father's company was on that flight....it was big news in my small hometown & i still remember the celebrations when this guy came back home....there must have been thousands of people present at the station to receive him....

deventhakkar

Thanks for the information that's coming up so far. Can someone answer my question which is on posts # 7 and 8?

oliver2002

Around the time of the hijack, IC must have been already actively seeking a fleet replacement for their at the time pretty old A300B2 fleet bought in 1976-78. The B2 were parked soon after and the B4 stumbled along as the political decision(s) wound their way. When the replacements (A321) finally arrived in 2007-10, ICs days were counted since they were merged with AI.