Gandhinagar: A suspicious aircraft from Pakistan entering in North of Gujarat airspace was forced to land in Jaipur. Indian Air Force in its statement said, An-12 aircraft of Georgia after getting airborne for Delhi from Karachi deviated from its scheduled flight path and entered Indian Air Space from an unscheduled point in North Gujarat. It was intercepted by IAF Air Defence aircraft and forced to land at Jaipur airfield.

Full text of IAF statement:

An unknown aircraft entered Indian Air Space in North Gujarat sector at 15.15 hours with its IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) ‘on’.

The aircraft did not follow the authorized Air Traffic Service (ATS) route and was not responding to Radio calls from Indian controlling agencies.

Since ATS routes in the area were closed due to the current geopolitical situation, and the aircraft entered Indian Air Space from an unscheduled point, the Air Defense interceptor on operational readiness was scrambled and vectored towards the unknown aircraft for investigation. On visual contact, the aircraft was identified as Georgian An-12 flying at twenty seven thousand feet.

The aircraft neither responded on international distress frequency nor to visual signals during interception.

However, when challenged, the aircraft responded and informed that it was a non scheduled An-12 aircraft that had got airborne from Tbilisi (Georgia) for Delhi via Karachi.

The aircraft was shadowed and forced to land at Jaipur for necessary investigation.

DeshGujarat