Indigo pilot reports seeing 'drone' near Mumbai airport, triggers security alert

Mumbai: The pilot of an Indigo flight complained to the Mumbai Air Traffic Control around 6 pm on Tuesday about having sighted a drone. The information was immediately conveyed to the security agency of the city airport, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which informed the domestic airport police about it. The message was conveyed to Saharthe, Ghatkopar, Kurla and Sakinaka police as well and officers are now trying to trace the drone.

Earlier this month, the Mumbai police had issued an alert about a possible terror strike that could be carried out via “drones”. A circular issued by the Mumbai Police Commissionerate, a copy of which is with The Asian Age, warns of attacks that could be orchestrated between “October 2 and 31”.

DCP Virendra Mishra of zone 8, however, informed that the police had slapped section 144 on drones, and so they were checking about it. “The pilot informed security agencies that he had sighted something like a drone. So as of now, the drone sighting is not confirmed, and we have to confirm it,” he said.

CISF sources informed this newspaper that at 5.55 pm, they were alerted by the ATC that the pilot of the Indigo flight 6E 755, flying from Delhi, had seen a drone 100 feet below the flight on the Kurla side. The alleged drone, which was of a pink-blue colour, was flying on the east side of Mumbai airport at a distance of 3.5 km.

A police officer from the domestic airport’s police station said that the pilot had informed them that the drone was at a height of 500 feet. “The pilot said that when he was about to land at the runway 27 end, he sighted the drone,” he said.