Vietnamese plane diverted to Baku

A Vietnamese plane made an emergency landing in Baku in the early hours on Tuesday, a local TV channel reported.

The Boeing-777 plane en route from Baku to Vietnam with 290 passengers and 17 crew onboard had to land at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport due to a windshield crack. No casualties are reported.

The passengers awaiting a new flight, most of whom are citizens of the United States, Britain, France, Turkey and other countries, have been provided with hotel accommodation. 150 of them have been granted visas to return to Vietnam.

In similar developments, windshield cracks caused two other aircraft to land in Baku, including a Russian plane en route from Baku to Ufa, Bashkiria and a plane of Slovakian Airlines flying from Delhi to Bratislava.

The Azerbaijan Airlines State Concern (AzAL) said the cracks could have resulted from windshield freezing, abrupt changes in temperature or poor quality of the glass used.*