India test-fired a BrahMos supersonice cruise missile from INS Kochi on Nov. 1, during that time, the airspace in the exercise remained opened to commercial air traffic due to a communications mix-up.
Photo: Indian Ministry of Defence
Mumbai Mirror said the Navy had told Air Traffic Control (ATC) Mumbai to close the airspace over the exercise area between 1230 and 1530 hours with no mention of the timezone. But the time actually given was in Indian Standard Time (IST) and the civilian air traffic control failed to verify and assumed it was in GMT, which is the standard timezone for aviation-related matters.
The error was only discovered when the Watch Safety Officer on duty made a check with naval officers to see if everything was proceeding as scheduled and was told the exercise is already over.
Both the Navy and the Air Traffic Control remained tight-lipped on how many commercial aircraft passed through the airspace when the exercises were on.
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