IAF denies involvement of its aircraft in Jorhat incident

The Indian Air Force on Wednesday denied that any IAF aircraft was involved in the "near-collision" between two planes at Jorhat in Assam.

"There was no IAF aircraft involved in the incident yesterday. The aircraft IL-76 Gajraj belonged to the Aviation Research Centre of RAW and the IAF has nothing to do with it," an official of the Eastern Air Command here said.

When asked whether the IAF was probing the matter, the spokesman replied in the negative.

Reacting to reports that the Air Traffic Control at Jorhat was under the IAF, the spokesman said, "the ATC is not under IAF but operating under DGCA."

A possible mid-air collision was averted on Tuesday when an Air India Airbus IC 206 -with 43 passengers on board and the IL-76 aircraft came dangerously close to each other over the Assam airspace.

An Air India spokesman claimed on Tuesday that the Airbus came close to an IAF aircraft.