Fighting COVID-19: IAF airlifts three Cryogenic Oxygen tankers from Bangkok to Hyderabad

The aircraft landed at Begumpet at around 1415 hrs on Saturday. This will be followed by few more ferries in the coming week, a Defence release here said.

Aircraft got airborne in the wee hours from Chandigarh and flew over Bay of Bengal in a challenging weather and reached Bangkok around 0900 hrs.

Aircraft was loaded with empty Cryogenic tankers from Bangkok and landed at Begumpet AFS in the afternoon. This is the part of ongoing efforts by the Indian Air Force to support the national fight against Covid-19.

Cryogenic containers are used to transport liquid medical oxygen. India is trying to procure as many cryo-containers as possible from across the globe to reduce the bottlenecks in the transportation of the oxygen to states.

Air Force Station Begumpet is one of the nodal centre of IAF operations towards the national fight against COVID.

Round the clock operations from past one month for airlifting of hundreds of oxygen tankers, oxygen concentrators and cylinders and tonnes of foreign aid has been supported by the Air warriors of AFS Begumpet, controllers of Airport Authorities of India (AAI) and employees of Indian Oil Corporation.

Indian Air Force continues to be fully dedicated towards the National effort for timely supply of covid relief material amid acute shortages in these crucial times, the release added.