Air India flight passengers diverted to Magadan stay in local school building after emergency landing. San Francisco flight to resume Thursday.

Passengers from an Air India flight traveling from Delhi to San Francisco and diverted to Magadan are staying in a public school building guarded by the Russian military. The emergency landing took place on June 6, due to aircraft malfunction.

Because none of the 232 passengers and 11 crew members had Russian visas, the Russian authorities placed them in a makeshift “temporary housing facility” organized at the school. Only families with children and pregnant women were placed in a hotel, due to the scarcity of hotels in the area.

A source in the Magadan mayor’s office told RIA Novosti that, by law, visa-less passengers from the stranded flight would normally have to remain aboard the aircraft. Magadan’s airport has no border checkpoint, since it only services domestic flights. “Considering their circumstances,” the local authorities came up with an alternative, placing the travelers in a secured school building. “We’d love to show the passengers around Magadan,” said the official, “but municipal authorities don’t have license to do this.”

In a local TV news segment, one of the passengers comments that their hosts have been “very nice” and helpful. The school’s cafeteria staff admitted not having been ready to cook for a large number of vegetarians, but they’ve prepared a meatless borscht and plenty of rice for the stranded foreigners, most of them originally from India.

Air India has obtained Russia’s permission to send another aircraft to Magadan and pick up the passengers and crew. The flight to San Francisco is scheduled to resume on June 8.