Amritsar, August 27
An Air France civil airliner violated Indian airspace and entered India from Pakistan’s side towards south- east of the city making Defence top brass sit up and dispatch a fighter MIG-29 aircraft to follow airliner to probe the incident.
Indian Defence set up became alert when Amritsar-based Indian Air Force radar picked up images of an aircraft- like object hovering over in Indian airspace in the city in the northern sector at 6.10 am The aircraft was flying at 37,000 feet and had entered Indian airspace on an established border entry point on ATS route.
The aircraft’s not being in communication with the Air Traffic Control officials perplexed Air Defence officials . Besides, the Secondary Radar Response Code (used to identify whether an aircraft was of foe or friend) or the Squawk code of the aircraft was not correct hence, the aircraft fell in the stipulated “unknown” category.
As the aircraft staff failed to establish communication with Indian officials an IAF MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled to intercept the aircraft and establish identity of the unknown carrier,” said Defence spokesperson Naresh Vig.
While the MiG followed the “unknown” aircraft, it was only little later the aircraft crew started transmitting correct secondary radar response code and these were picked up. Subsequently, the Air Defence radar identified the aircraft as as civil airliner(A-343)of Air France(AFR-164).The flight
was from Paris to Bangkok. It was only after identification of the aircraft that the MiG-29 fighter aircraft was given instructions to break-off and return to base. A formal report of the incident has been forwarded to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) by the Indian Air Force.
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