Mid-air scare

An Indian Air Force aircraft carrying External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to South Africa went incommunicado for fourteen minutes on June 2, sparking a mid-air security scare after the Mauritius Air Traffic Control pressed the panic button.

Contact could not be established with the Indian Air Force's Embraer 135 plane after it left the jurisdiction of Male (Maldives) Air Traffic Control and entered the Mauritius airspace on June 2, the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) said in a statement on Sunday.

But instead of the waiting for the mandatory 30 minutes, the "uncertainty" phase, the first stage of an emergency situation, was activated, known as INCERFA in aviation parlance, it said.

"Mauritius ATC activated the uncertainty phase without allowing the stipulated time period of 30 minutes to lapse from the time when the aircraft last contacted ATC. This was perhaps done because the flight was carrying a VIP," the AAI said.

Since the Embraer aircraft, carrying the minister does not have a long range flying, it had stopovers at Thiruvananthapuram in India and Mauritius for refuelling.

Soon after it entered the jurisdiction of the Mauritius ATC, the incident unfolded leading to panic. However, there was a sigh of relief when the aircraft came in contact with the ATC there,  the AAI said.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has not commented on the issue so far.

Swaraj is in South Africa to attend the meetings of two trans-continental groupings Brazil, Russia, India, China South Africa (BRICS) and India Brazil South Africa (BSA).