Everything seemed routine for pilots departing from Indian airports with thousands of passengers on Monday night. However, as they reached midway, flights were forced to turn back after Iran launched ballistic missiles at an American airbase in Qatar.
Source: aajtak
Caption: These flights took off from Mumbai, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Amritsar, Kannur, Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Lucknow, and Mangalore.
India Today’s Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) team, after reviewing flight data, discovered that most aircraft flying over the Arabian Sea returned between 10 PM and 11 PM.
According to Flightradar24's statistics, at least 13 flights operated by Indian airlines were either returned to their home airports or diverted to nearby safe airports.
IndiGo, Air India, Air India Express, and SpiceJet were among the affected airlines. These flights were bound for UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.
Source: aajtak
IndiGo's Hyderabad-Abu Dhabi flight IGO1407 had to make a U-turn around 10:50 PM near the Gulf of Oman and was diverted to Surat. Meanwhile, Air India Express's Varanasi to Sharjah flight circled for some time before landing at its destination.
Similarly, three Jazeera Airways flights heading to Delhi, Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram from Kuwait also had to return. Jazeera's flight JZR405 had crossed Qatar but made a U-turn at 10:19 PM Indian time.
Source: aajtak
Many international airlines also faced diversions and had to make emergency landings at several Indian airports before resuming their journeys to the Gulf or Europe. These included Etihad, Emirates, and FlyDubai.
Flights heading from cities like Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Phuket to the Middle East and Europe also had to reroute. Many had to land at airports in India and Southeast Asia, including Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Cochin, Bengaluru, Chennai, Singapore, and Bahrain. Some had to cancel their flights altogether and return home.
Source: aajtak
For example, a nearly eight-hour-long flight from Manila to Doha had to reroute and land at Bengaluru airport. Likewise, another flight from New Delhi heading to Dubai had to return to Delhi.
Pre-planned Attack
On Monday night, Iran fired around six missiles at Al Udeid, the largest U.S. airbase in Qatar. This was in response to U.S. airstrikes on Iran's three major nuclear sites.
Hours before the missile strike, several Gulf countries, including Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and the UAE, temporarily closed their airspace. Qatar even suspended all flights entirely.
Aviation analysis firm Cirium reported that about two dozen flights headed to Doha had to be diverted, most operated by Qatar Airways. Additionally, many flights to Dubai had to change course.
The sudden returns and diversions resulted in significant financial and operational losses for airlines as they had to opt for alternative routes to avoid potential threats or attacks.
Due to the ongoing conflict, the airspace over Russia and Ukraine has been closed to most airlines for years, making the Middle East route increasingly crucial for flights between Europe and Asia. Owing to the recent missile and air attacks, airlines have begun utilizing routes either north of the Caspian Sea or the southern paths over Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
