Rohit Pawar claims Eknath Shinde's plane was grounded for 2 hours; new flight plan filed

MUMBAI: Rohit Pawar has claimed that a VSR flight with then CM Eknath Shinde was forced to turn back from Iraq to Bahrain as it did not have prior permission to fly over Iraq airspace during his trip to the Davos summit in 2023.

"The aircraft was treated as an unidentified aircraft by Iraqi authorities and a security concern was raised. The plane had to do an air turnback and return to Bahrain," Rohit alleged, adding that the incident put the then CM's life at risk. "If VSR could treat a flight carrying a CM like this, it shows how negligent the company is with its flight operations," he said.

TOI spoke with sources and gathered more information about the flight. "The aircraft departed Mumbai at 11.50pm IST on Jan 15 and landed in Bahrain at 12.47am local time on Jan 16," said a source. It departed Bahrain at 2.30am, but after entering Iraqi airspace was forced to turn back and landed again in Bahrain at 4am. After remaining on the ground for more than two hours while the charter company filed a fresh flight plan, the aircraft took off at 6.57am local time and later continued to Zurich on a revised route that overflew Iran over the Zagros mountains.

Overflight clearance is a mandatory, legal requirement before entering a country's sovereign airspace. Each country has its own norms framed using recommendations listed in the International Civil Aviation Organisation's Annex 6. The overflight clearance is issued by the country's civil aviation regulator and/or the airport authority concerned and the permit allows an aircraft to overfly the country's airspace without landing while using and paying for the navigation facilities provided by its airports' air traffic control. To overfly Indian airspace on a foreign aircraft, for instance, charter operators must apply to the Airports Authority of India at least three working days in advance. "Entering a country's airspace without prior clearance is treated as a serious security violation because unidentified aircraft can be perceived as potential threats. Air defence systems may scramble fighter aircraft or force the aircraft to exit the airspace immediately," said a senior commander.

Questioning the regulator's response, Rohit asked why the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had not initiated an investigation into the incident. "This is a serious security lapse, but there has been no investigation, nothing," he said.