The Austrian aircraft parked at the Tribhuvan Int’l airport. (Photo source: DPR)

The Austrian aircraft parked at the Tribhuvan Int’l airport. (Photo source: DPR)

An Austrian aircraft, that was forced to land at the Tribhuvan International Airport last Monday, missed its route since an Indian Air Force (IAF) station at Bagdogra in West Bengal state of India did not monitor the flight, a news report said.

NDTV.com, an online version of New Delhi Television—a private Indian TV company—reported that the incident happened due to ‘carelessness’ of officials at an IAF base at Bagdogra. The flight, which took off from Lilabari in Upper Assam at 12.26 pm (IST) was expected to fly over Bagdogra, an Indian Air Force base, by 1.20 pm from where IAF controllers would guide the pilot right up to Kolkata.

There, a new set of air traffic controllers were supposed to give him directions.

The plane, flown by an Austrian pilot unfamiliar with the terrain, strayed into Nepal’s airspace where it was intercepted and forced to land in Kathmandu.

All this while, the IAF station at Bagdogra had no idea about the flight as their radars, supposed to monitor air traffic were not working, the news report said.

In 1995, a private aircraft airdropped a huge consignment of illegal arms at Purulia in West Bengal and flew off without being detected.

Ten years later, aviation authorities seem to have learnt few lessons.

According to air traffic rules, if a plane cannot be traced for more than 10 minutes, an alert should be sounded. But nobody cared to find out for the next two hours, that is, until 3 pm, when Kathmandu informed the Benaras air traffic control that the plane had been forced to land there.

According to NDTV, the plane was chartered by D S Construction, a firm which does contract work for NHPC, an Indian company, and had four NHPC officials on board.

They were on their way back after reviewing a project site in Assam when the incident happened. And it could have been easily avoided if the IAF radars worked.

The Indian Air Force is now looking at why the radars did not work, since every flight in this sensitive border area is supposed to be monitored. When contacted, the IAF refused to comment, the news report said.

What is alarming about the incident is that instead of a civilian plane, it could have easily been a rogue aircraft, sneak into Indian airspace, survey the area or even airdropping arms for militant outfits in the Northeast.

Upon investigation, Nepali authorities found that the plane had entered Nepal due to ‘human error’ and allowed it to return after paying parking charge and penalty. The aircraft, however, remained parked at TIA till Friday waiting for permission from Indian authorities to fly to New Delhi, reports said. nepalnews.com by Aug 06 05