A special airplane from Hyderabad, India, made an odd stopover at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on Monday.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) stated that it was an international chartered flight that had merely flown from India to Pakistan and is, in fact, registered in the UK.
“Other than that, the flight had nothing to do with India,” he added.
The spokesman also confirmed that the special flight had left Karachi with 12 ‘high profile’ Pakistani nationals for Dubai, UAE, but refrained from revealing their identities.
The airplane had reportedly come from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Indian Hyderabad and had arrived in Karachi at 12:10 PM.
In a similar event, an Indian Hyderabad-bound plane from Sharjah, UAE, had made an emergency landing at Karachi Airport on 17 July, reportedly for a technical issue according to the pilot.
IndiGo Airlines had officially stated that “IndiGo flight 6E-1406, operating from Sharjah to Hyderabad was diverted to Karachi. The pilot observed a technical defect. Necessary procedures were followed and as a precaution, the aircraft was diverted to Karachi. An additional flight is being sent to Karachi to fly the passengers to Hyderabad”.
Prior to this, a SpiceJet airplane traveling from New Delhi to Dubai had landed in Karachi on 5 July due to an indicator light malfunctioning.
Both planes had landed in Karachi within two weeks of each other, while the latest Indian airplane’s stopover takes this number to three.
In a related story, a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from Islamabad (ISB) to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia was delayed until 12 AM on 16 August because its deadline to cross Indian airspace had expired due to a technical fault in the plane.
A Spokesperson of the PIA explained that flight PK 894 from ISB to KL was scheduled for departure at 1:36 PM however, it could not do so because of a technical issue. Later, the issue was resolved but its time to transit through Indian airspace had expired therefore the flight faced around an 11-hour delay until a permit was issued from the Indian authorities.
The PIA officials had applied for a new permit from India. While the flight was expected to depart at 12 AM for Kuala Lumpur, a PIA spokesperson had stated. It is to be noted that, this flight enters Indian airspace from near Lahore and transits through New Delhi and Kolkata to enter the Malaysian airspace.