ISLAMABAD – A missile accidentally fired from India into Pakistan last week posed serious risk to dozens of commercial flights that passed through its direct trajectory that day, international media reported.
Last week on Wednesday, a supersonic missile entered Pakistan airspace at 1843 hours near Mian Channu at 1850 causing damage to civilian property. Islamabad was able to detect the missile soon after it was launched in Sirsa in India, 104km from the Pakistan border.
The Pakistan military slammed the Indian over its “flagrant violation” of its airspace, and also demanded probe into the matter. It also highlighted that the unarmed missile could have led to a major aviation disaster.
Later, India admitted that the missile was fired due to “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance.
“Several planes passed through the direct trajectory of the missile that day, which flew from the Indian garrison town of Ambala and ended up in Mian Channu in Eastern Pakistan,” Bloomberg reported.
It said that flights of Flydubai, IndiGo and Airblue were passing through the same trajectory on that day.
“All crossed the missile’s trajectory within an hour of its accidental launch, data from flight-tracking application Flightradar24 show,” Bloomberg said.
The missile also put Kuwait Airways Co. jet heading to Guangzhou from Kuwait City, a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Riyadh from New Delhi, and a Qatar Airways service from Kathmandu to Doha at risk, according to the data.
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