The US military aircraft that had violated Indian airspace took off from Mumbai airport on Monday evening after dilly-dallying over flight plan.
The Boeing 767-300 aircraft of North American airlines, chartered by the US Army, was made to land at the airport on Sunday morning, following call sign confusion. It was an army aircraft but the pilot quoted the call sign of acivilian aircraft.
The plane had 205 US Marines who were on their way to Bangkok from Fujirah in the United Arab Emirates. “The aircraft was over Mumbai airspace when an air traffic control (ATC) official asked the pilot for the call sign. The pilot said N807, which is a civilian aircraft identification number. The call sign assigned to the US army plane starts with REACH,” a Mumbai airport official said.
The ATC official asked the pilot whether it was a civil or a military flight. When the pilot said it was a US military flight, the ATC official asked him to land in Mumbai airport.
A civilian aircraft takes permission from the DGCA and a military one from the IAF. In this case the air force was not informed. The pilot was asked to pay the navigation charges by the ATC. When his credit card was not accepted, the US embassy paid it.
After seven hours of its landing, the flight was given a clearance by the IAF and the Ministry for External Affairs. But the flight duty time limit (FDTL) of the pilot had
expired. When a pilot’s FDTL expires, he/she has to rest, according to international norms. So, the pilot and the passengers were shifted to Grand Hyatt, Sahar, on
Sunday evening.
On Monday the departure was delayed because the pilot had not submitted the flight plan. “There was some confusion. The pilot was in contact with the airline in the US,” a Mumbai International Airport Limited official said. “At 3.30pm the pilot filed the flight plan. At 5.34pm the plane left for Bangkok.”
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