Pakistan reportedly rejected an Indian commercial flight crew’s request to enter its airspace to avoid turbulence after the aircraft was caught in a storm.
The IndiGo flight from New Delhi to Srinagar in India-administered Kashmir, carrying nearly 200 passengers, including five members of parliament, hit severe turbulence during an unexpected hailstorm on Wednesday, which caused minor damage to the aircraft’s nose.
A viral video captured panicked scenes inside the cabin, with passengers screaming and crying as the plane shook violently from the turbulence. Despite the chaos, the flight landed safely in Srinagar at 6.30pm local time.
“It was a near-death experience. I thought my life was over. People were screaming, praying and panicking,” Sagarika Ghose, MP from the opposition Trinamool Congress party, said. “Hats off to the pilot who brought us through that. When we landed, we saw the nose of the plane had blown up.”
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India’s aviation regulator, said the airplane was caught in a hailstorm and severe turbulence near Pathankot in Punjab state near the border with Pakistan.
The crew asked the northern control of the Indian air force for permission to deviate towards the international border but were turned down, the aviation body said.
“The crew then contacted Lahore’s air traffic control tower to enter into their airspace but same was refused too,” it added.
According to the regulator, the crew initially attempted to return but decided to go through the storm as they were close to the cloud. “There was no injury to any of the passengers on board the flight. Post-flight walk-around revealed damage to the nose radome,” it said.
India and Pakistan shut their airspaces to each other’s planes amid one of the worst military skirmishes in decades between the South Asian nuclear powers earlier this month.
In the wake of the conflict, India had to shut nearly 20 airports along its northern and western border for commercial use.
The conflict began after India struck alleged militant hideouts in Pakistan to avenge the massacre of 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, in a militant attack in Kashmir on 22 April. New Delhi accused Pakistan of supporting the gunmen who had launched the attack, but Islamabad denied the charge and sought an independent investigation.
The Indian strikes escalated the tensions into a military skirmish as the two sides exchanged heavy fire along their de facto border in the restive Kashmir region, as well as missile and drone attacks on military installations, leaving dozens of people dead on both sides.
The Indian aviation regulator has reportedly directed commercial airlines to ensure that aircraft window shades, except for emergency exit row seats, stay shut during takeoff and landing at airports near the border for “enhanced operational safety and to prevent unintentional sharing of security-related information”.
