A U.S.-bound Air India plane carrying 216 passengers and 16 crew members was diverted to a port city in Russia after the aircraft developed an engine problem, officials said on Wednesday. The aircraft was "likely" carrying U.S. citizens, a U.S. State Department official confirmed.

The plane, a Boeing 777, safely landed in Magadan, Russia, on Tuesday evening after the large aircraft developed a glitch midair and was then diverted "and landed safely at Magadan Airport in Russia." The aircraft was flying from New Delhi to San Francisco, California. 

The plane landed safely in the northeastern Russia port city, and is working with local port authorities, Air India said in a statement. 

Magadan is a sparsely populated oblast, with just 136,085 citizens, according to a 2021 census. Due to the limited resources, Air India said that passengers were "eventually moved to makeshift accommodations." 

"As we do not have any Air India staff based in the remote town of Magadan or in Russia, all ground support being provided to the passengers is the best possible in this unusual circumstance through our round the clock liaison with the Consulate General of India in Vladivostok, Indian ministry of external affairs, local ground handlers and Russian authorities," the statement said.

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Air India said a relief aircraft will depart from Mumbai at 1pm on Wednesday for Magadan to take stranded Air India passengers to their final destination in San Francisco. 

Vedant Patel, a U.S. State Department spokesperson, said that American citizens were likely on the flight but could not immediately confirm how many. 

"We are aware of a US-bound flight that had to make an emergency landing in Russia and are continuing to monitor that situation closely," Patel said. "I am not able to confirm how many US citizens were aboard the flight at this time."

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Family and friends shared their outrage on Twitter following Air India's statement on the stranded passengers whereabouts. 

"How come no one has been able to reach the passengers in 18 hours after landing?" one disgruntled commenter wrote in a Twitter post to Air India.

On Wednesday morning, a Twitter user shared a video which he said was taken by one of the passengers. 

The footage showed Air India passengers in cramped living quarters, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. 

Girvaan Kaahma, 16, was traveling on the flight with his uncle and brother. He said they are barred from leaving the hostel where they are staying in Magadan and can’t use their credit cards to buy items from the vending machine because of sanctions over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The U.S. Department of State did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

An unusual thing happened the other day.

A prominent Republican announced he is not running for president because he doesn’t want to add to the growing anti-Trump field – and ensure the former president’s nomination.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a moderate conservative, said he wanted to be more "candid" than he could be as a candidate. He says he wants the GOP to attract more independents and younger voters, "making sure this is about the Republican Party, not just about the former president."

Of course, Sununu may also have looked at the landscape and decided he didn’t have a chance in hell. Both things can be true.

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His impact is negligible because Mike Pence and Chris Christie are taking the leap, along with the governor of North Dakota (bonus points for knowing his name).

Pence’s problem is that he has alienated elements of both sides. MAGA Republicans who think his former boss was robbed resent him for not blocking the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6. More moderate voters know he was Trump’s loyal VP for four years. 

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Christie sees his role as pummeling Trump on the debate stage (because Trump may skip the early debates and Christie may not meet the RNC’s absurdly high threshold of having 40,000 donors). But the former New Jersey governor will liven up the race by calling out Trump by name, as opposed to these vague "we must break the culture of losing"comments that don’t actually mention him.

"While the two men have a long personal relationship," the Wall Street Journal notes, "it deteriorated faster once Christie became critical of Trump after he lost the 2020 election and refused to concede."

"Donald Trump says he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours tonight on CNN," Christie recently tweeted. "Despite how ridiculous that is to say, I suspect he would try to do it by turning Ukraine over to Putin and Russia. #Putin’sPuppet."

Throw in Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott (who was smart enough to go on "The View" and confront his liberal critics), and others, and you have a field approaching 2016 proportions.

I know it’s early, but at the moment, DeSantis is the only one who appears to have a real shot at upending Trump.

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On the Democratic side, where polls and focus groups show even voters who admire the president’s accomplishments worried about his age, no serious challenger has emerged.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who just did a two-hour Twitter chat with Elon Musk, is an anti-vax crusader who says the Democrats are under the control of the pharmaceutical industry. But he’s reached as high as 19% in the Democratic polls, and a Trafalga Group survey says two-thirds of those with an opinion on the matter attribute this to dissatisfaction with Joe Biden.

If you’re taking a poll with Biden as the front-runner, and the only alternatives are Kennedy (and Marianne Williamson), they become vehicles for a protest vote.

Cornel West, the former Harvard professor, is now running for president on the People’s Party line, saying "neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about big tech."

West won’t go far, but his far-left agenda could attract some progressive Democrats or prompt them to stay home.

In both parties, then, most of the long-shot candidates are just that – which is why a Biden-Trump rematch has become the preferred media narrative.