Singapore sends Turkish Airlines flight home empty after coronavirus case

Singapore's transport ministry said in a statement on its website that authorities had begun tracing passengers on flight TK54 that may have had contact with the infected person.

Reuters

March 05, 2020 / 13:27 IST

Representative image (REUTERS/Randall Hill)

A Turkish Airlines aircraft was flown back to Istanbul without any passengers on board on March 5 on orders from authorities in Singapore after a passenger who had arrived on the same plane on March 3 tested positive for coronavirus.

The infected passenger was not Turkish and transited through Istanbul enroute to Singapore from another location, a Turkish aviation official told Reuters, adding there were 143 passengers aboard the flight, as well as three pilots and 10 crew members.

Singapore's aviation regulator said that the pilots and crew of flight TK54 that had arrived on March 3 were on the return flight to Istanbul, where they would be placed in quarantine. The aviation official said the crew tested negative for the virus in Singapore.

"The crew had come into close contact with a passenger on flight TK54 who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19," the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said in a statement.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in contact with the Turkish Embassy, which has confirmed that the crew will be quarantined upon arrival at Istanbul," CAAS said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

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