That a foreign military aircraft could pass itself off as a civilian flight 15 times before detection raises serious questions about India’s air surveillance.
The violation of Indian airspace by a US military aircraft on Friday evening was not the first such instance, DNA has learnt: it’s been happening for the past 15 days. Russian transport aircraft carrying US military cargo have been repeatedly hoodwinking Indian airspace managers by claiming to be civilian aircraft, exposing serious lacunae in the Indian air space surveillance apparatus.
The Antonov AN-124, operated by a Russian firm, Volga-Dnepr Airlines, had been hired by the US military to transport cargo to Kandahar. The aircraft, however, had declared itself to all the Indian authorities, including the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Military Liaison Unit (MLU), as a nonscheduled, civilian flight. In reality, however, it was ferrying military cargo and, according to unconfirmed reports, ammunition for the US military operations in Afghanistan.
The failure of the Indian authorities to register this blatant airspace intrusion into Indian airspace has raised several questions about the alertness of the agencies entrusted with the task of giving air clearances to all flights using Indian airspace.
Though the Indian authorities suddenly woke up on Friday night and instructed the pilot to land in Mumbai, sources admitted that the aircraft had been flying daily for the past 15 days with the same ‘civil’ call sign. But it would change its call sign to that of a military aircraft after entering Afghanistan.
It was this surreptitious duality of flight status that raised the suspicion of the MLU in Mumbai on Friday night. Senior defense officials said it was shocking that noone (neither at the DGCA nor at the MLU) had detected the dual identity of the aircraft earlier and had kept giving air defense clearances so many times.
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