The missile test forced an Indonesian airliner packed with passengers to turn around mid-flight and head home, said Jakarta.
JAKARTA: A surprise Indian missile test forced an Indonesian airliner packed with passengers to turn around mid-flight and head home, the foreign ministry in Jakarta said on Friday as a diplomatic spat brewed.
The Garuda Indonesia jet, full of Muslim pilgrims en route to Saudi Arabia, had reached Indian airspace when the nuclear-capable ballistic missile streaked across the sky on Thursday, forcing the plane to turn around.
The Indian ambassador must explain as soon as possible why the incident happened since the airspace should have been closed, Indonesia's foreign ministry said.
"Usually closed airspace is alerted to international authorities but the fact is, our plane flew and had to return," ministry spokesman Kristiarto Legowo told reporters.
The ministry could lodge a formal protest over the incident, Indonesia's Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa told the Kompas newspaper.
"There was no prior information about the test," the national carrier's operations director Ari Sapari was quoted as saying in the report.
The Boeing 747 jet carrying 400 people aborted its flight after 90 minutes and returned to the Indonesian capital Jakarta, the report said.
"This clearly disrupted our schedule and caused us big losses," Sapari was quoted as saying.
The plane resumed its journey four hours later.
The jet's exact location relative to the missile, which trailed orange and yellow smoke as it rocketed skyward, had not yet been made public.
All countries had been informed about Agni test: India
Rejecting claims by Jakarta that it had no knowledge about Agni-III missile launch, India said authorities in Indonesia and other countries in the region had been informed about Thursday's test-fire a week before.
"A notice was sent a week before the test by the Indian civil aviation authorities to Air Traffic Control (ATC), Jakarta and other ATCs in the region informing them about the launch window dates, danger time, zone and height," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters here.
"The ATCs were requested to take action to issue NOTAM (Notice to Aviators and Mariners) in accordance with relevant ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) provisions," Sarna said.
His reaction came in the wake of an Indonesian media report in which Jakarta claimed that the missile test forced a plane of national carrier Garuda, with 400 people on board, to abort its flight.
Sarna underlined that India's missile testing programme has always followed the requisite safety precautions and the same was done in the case of Agni-III test on Thursday.
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