Air India flight briefly enters Pakistan airspace after technical snag

Chandigarh, Jun 24:  An Air India flight operating on the Delhi-Amritsar sector briefly entered Pakistani airspace on Monday night after experiencing a technical snag in its navigation system, official sources confirmed on Wednesday.

The aircraft, an Airbus A321 (Flight AI-463), safely returned to Indian airspace after being alerted by Pakistani Air Traffic Control (ATC) and later landed in Amritsar after a brief diversion back to the national capital.

According to airport and aviation sources, the flight departed from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 9:18 PM on Monday. Shortly into its journey toward Amritsar, the aircraft encountered a technical malfunction that disrupted its onboard navigation tools, causing the flight path to drift westward across the International Border into Pakistani territory.

“The deviation was promptly flagged by the Pakistani air traffic authorities, who coordinated with the flight crew to alert them of the airspace breach. The pilots immediately corrected their course and guided the aircraft back into Indian territory,” a senior airport official stated on the condition of anonymity.

However, the operational challenges did not end there. By the time the aircraft approached Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport around 10:30 PM, the local airspace was experiencing high traffic congestion. Due to the lack of an immediate landing slot and operational constraints, air traffic controllers instructed the flight to return to Delhi.

The aircraft flew back to Delhi, where it landed safely for a technical inspection. After receiving the necessary operational clearances, the flight took off once again for its destination and finally touched down safely in Amritsar at approximately 2:20 AM on Tuesday, nearly four hours behind its scheduled arrival time.

Air India or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has yet to release an official statement regarding the specific nature of the navigation failure. Meanwhile, aviation authorities have initiated a routine investigation into the incident to assess the exact circumstances behind the route deviation.

This incident follows a similar incident last month in which a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight briefly entered Indian airspace due to bad weather, but was later safely redirected back to the correct path by Indian ATC.