Mumbai: Pilots of an Air India aircraft spotted four flying objects, allegedly parachutes, in the south of Mumbai on Friday .
Air India Flight 671 (Airbus 319 aircraft) took off for Chennai at 9.30am. After taking off from the airport’s main runway, it took a left turn. About ten minutes later, when the aircraft was at an altitude of 6,000 feet, the pilot informed the ATC that he could see four parachutes flying at a lower altitude. The parachutes were yellow, red, blue and green in colour and sighted at a distance of 20km from the city airport.
All coastal police stations, namely, Arnala, Virar, Palghar, Satpati, Kelwe Road and Dahanu were alerted by police officials after they came to know about the spotting of parachutes.
The DGCA has ordered a probe into the matter. A senior official from DGCA said, “The ATC has informed us about the message from AI crew.”
While DGCA officials maintained that no conclusion has been drawn about the identity of these kobjects, a senior ATC official said parachutes are meant for jumping from aircraft but ATC’s city radar did not show any other flight in the area at that time, so chances are that the flying objects are not parachutes.
