A missile that was accidentally fired from India last week narrowly misseddozens of commercial jets that were in the same skies.
Several planes passed through the direct trajectory of the missile thatday, which flew from the Indian garrison town of Ambala and ended up inMian Channu in Eastern Pakistan.
They included a Flydubai jet heading to Dubai from Sialkot, an IndiGo planefrom Srinagar to Mumbai and an Airblue Ltd. flight from Lahore to Riyadh.All crossed the missile’s trajectory within an hour of its accidentallaunch, data from flight-tracking application Flightradar24 show.
Other international flights in the vicinity of the missile’s trajectory –and within its range — included a Kuwait Airways Co. jet heading toGuangzhou from Kuwait City, a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Riyadh fromNew Delhi, and a Qatar Airways service from Kathmandu to Doha, the datashow.
No advisory to pilots operating in the vicinity — known as a notice toairmen or NOTAM — was issued.
A time-lapse video of the airspace — prepared by Flightradar24 on requestfrom Bloomberg News — showed busy activity in the skies within an hour andhalf of both sides of 7 p.m. local time on March 9, which India said wasthe approximate time of the accidental launch.
India’s “robust missiles handling procedures are being reviewed and will bestrengthened further,” Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told lawmakersearlier this week.
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“Very unfortunate. It could have led to a disaster, what if it hit aPakistan International aircraft? said Mark Martin, founder of Dubai-basedMartin Consulting. “The bigger concern is what if it was taken as a hostileaction by Pakistan? We can’t brush it under the carpet, those accountablemust be held accountable. This could have escalated into a full-blownconflict.”
The averted tragedy is reminiscent of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014,when a missile owned by a Russia-based military unit hit the plane overUkraine, killing all 298 people aboard. In 2020, Iran unintentionally shotdown a Ukrainian passenger jet it mistook for a cruise missile, killing 176.
The Indian mishap last week had the potential of turning deadly, withPakistan preparing to launch a similar missile to strike India, BloombergNews reported earlier this week. The nuclear-armed Indian neighboreventually held fire after an initial assessment indicated something wasamiss.
A top official at India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation didn’trespond to a request for comment. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority andIndia’s defense ministry also didn’t immediately respond to requests forcomment.