Photo: S5A-0043 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
An Air India flight from Frankfurt to Delhi was diverted to Jaipur on Wednesday morning after air traffic controllers picked up a hijack signal from the aircraft, setting off a full security response before the alert was declared false. Flight AI2030, a Boeing 787-9 carrying about 300 people, landed safely at Jaipur International Airport at 9:35 am and was moved to an isolation bay ten minutes later, airport officials said.
A code the crew says they never set
According to people familiar with the matter, the aircraft began transmitting transponder code 7500, the internationally recognised signal for a hijacking or unlawful interference, while it was over western India. When controllers contacted the cockpit, the pilots reported that everything on board was normal. Protocol still required the plane to land at the nearest suitable airport, and it was diverted to Jaipur at about 9:10 am.
Officials said the pilots denied activating the code when they were questioned. Some early accounts on Wednesday described the incident as a bomb threat; an airport official later said the alert had involved a rumoured hijacking. The flight had left Frankfurt on Tuesday night and was due in Delhi at 10:40 am.
Multi-agency search at Jaipur
Central Industrial Security Force personnel, local police and a bomb detection and disposal squad searched the aircraft, cabin, cargo holds and passenger baggage, using sniffer dogs. Anti-Terrorism Squad personnel were present, nearby hospitals were put on alert as a precaution, and the National Security Guard was kept on standby in Delhi, according to officials. Rajasthan’s additional chief secretary (home) Bhaskar A. Sawant, Jaipur police commissioner Sachin Mittal and district collector Sandesh Nayak went to the airport.
Passengers and crew were taken off and held in a designated area of the terminal while the checks went on. Airport authorities said normal flight operations continued. Once nothing suspicious was found, the airport’s aerodrome committee concluded that the threat had been resolved, and the aircraft and the same crew were cleared to complete the journey. The plane took off from Jaipur for Delhi in the afternoon.
Air India flight AI2030 operating from Frankfurt to Delhi on 14 October was diverted to Jaipur following a perceived security concern. The aircraft landed safely in Jaipur.
Air India statement
The airline said security agencies had cleared the aircraft and crew after checks, that all passengers had been screened before reboarding, and that it regretted the inconvenience caused.
What investigators will look at
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and security agencies are now examining how the code came to be transmitted. Senior Boeing 787 pilots have said an accidental entry is highly unlikely because each digit of a transponder code has to be keyed in by hand. Senior air traffic controllers, meanwhile, have said a fault in the new system at Mumbai’s control centre is also unlikely. When a 7500 code is received, the aircraft’s marker turns red on radar screens and an alarm sounds.
The scare comes as Indian airlines continue to fly longer routes into the country because Pakistani airspace remains closed to Indian carriers, and shortly after the mid-air stabbing of an Indian pilot on a flydubai flight, which the National Investigation Agency is probing under anti-hijacking laws.
