Plane passengers were left stranded in one of the most fervently isolationist countries for almost a day. On Monday, an Air France flight 191 took off from Bengaluru, India, bound for Paris, 21 hours after its scheduled departure. But things only got worse for passengers on board the 26-year-old Boeing 777, after it descended four hours into its 10-hour journey and landed in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat. The cause of the diversion has not been confirmed, but it’s believed that “a fault developed in one of the engines,” according to The Independent. Ashgabat is not like other cities—all vehicles have to be white—and the country as a whole is regarded as totalitarian, with the lowest possible liberty rating given to it by Freedom House. “Turkmenistan is a repressive authoritarian state where political rights and civil liberties are almost completely denied in practice,” its scathing write-up says. A second Boeing 777 was later dispatched from Paris by Air France, with passengers finally leaving the city nearly 22 hours after arrival, landing in the French capital on Wednesday, 43 hours later than planned.
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