DGCA’s clerical error forced Pakistan to chase SpiceJet aircraft

On the morning of August 30, air traffic controllers at Lahore were startled to find that an “Indian military aircraft” had entered the Pakistan airspace. They were confused, too, as according to the flight plan and identification by the pilot, it was a civilian Boeing 737 plane but was transmitting the code of a military aircraft. They asked the pilot to hold the aircraft and alerted the Pakistan Air Force, which sent two F-16 fighter jets to escort it for about half an hour till it exited the country’s air space.

As things turned out, it was actually a SpiceJet flight with 120 passengers on board heading to Kabul from Delhi. The reason for the mistaken identity was a clerical error by an official of India’s aviation regulator, which assigned a military code while registering the SpiceJet aircraft.