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KOLKATA: A search of all islands in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago has drawn a naught, so far as the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is concerned, officials of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) confirmed on Saturday evening. Two Indian Navy ships, along with those from other nations, are continuing their search at the location pointed out by Malaysian authorities but nothing has been spotted on the water.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 on the way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
"There has been no oil slick, no flotsam or a sonar ping to indicate that the jetliner crashed anywhere close to where the search operations are being carried out. Details available with us are vague. Our search teams require a particular starting point from where to begin looking. We have searched all the islands but there were no signs of the aircraft," Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai, chief of staff, ANC, said.
READ ALSO: 'Missing jet's transponder was deliberately disabled'
Air traffic controllers at Kolkata have also ruled out the possibility of the missing aircraft flying through Indian airspace, one of the two possibilities that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak suggested at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. If this theory was correct, the aircraft couldn't have avoided the Kolkata Flight Information Region.
The other alternative route that the flight, whose communication system is now believed to have been deliberately disabled, is to the Indian Ocean south of the Malacca Strait where the plane was last sighted on a Malaysian military radar. According to Pillai, this would have taken the aircraft south of the Andamans.
Speaking to TOI, air traffic controllers' guild secretary Sugata Pramanik said that while flight MH370 could have avoided detection on the Secondary Surveillance Radar, the blip by the huge Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft would surely have been spotted by the Indian Air Force that uses primary surveillance radars to detect such intrusions.
"If an aircraft wants to avoid being seen, they can easily become invisible to civilian radar by switching off the transponder. But it cannot avoid defence systems. The IAF has radars in multiple installations across the country and it is inconceivable that none of them spotted the odd blip with no flight clearance," he said. There are nine air defence identification zones in the country that are manned 24x7 to prevent an enemy aircraft from violating Indian airspace.
READ ALSO: Satellites scour Earth for clues
According Guild member Sushil Mondal, all hell would break loose if the IAF detected an aircraft that did not have air defence clearance. Any plane flying through Indian airspace is first required to submit the flight plan and manifest to the air traffic controls in its flight path. This is then relayed to the air force for permission.
"There are times when the Air Force finds a blip that does not match a flight plan. That usually happens when flight plans going missing at their end due to a system or link failure. They then immediately contact us for information. If the plane flight plan isn't of suspicious nature, a clearance is granted. Or else, it is asked to return to wherever it came from. In case, we too don't have any information of the aircraft, there will be trouble and the Air Force scramble jets to take the plane down. Nothing of the kind happened last Saturday," said Mondal.
Recently, the IAF scrambled a Su-30MKI in the western sector after noticing an unidentified 'blip' crossing over from Pakistan, It turned out to be a weather balloon.
Kolkata airport has an Automatic Dependence Surveillance Radar and Controller-Pilot Datalink Communication that enables it to not only trail planes when it is in the radar zone of 60 nautical miles or nearly 120 km and beyond through very high frequency radio but also through the data link when the plane goes out of voice communication range. There are large areas in the Kolkata Flight Information Region, particularly over Bay of Bengal, that have no radar coverage at present.
A radar has been installed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but is yet to be commissioned.
Officials suspect that there is an arrangement between Malaysia and US agencies. Not sufficient of what Malaysia knows is being transmitted to India or other countries involved in a 'wild goose chase'.
Missing aircraft couldn’t have entered our airspace undetected: India - The Times of India
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 on the way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
"There has been no oil slick, no flotsam or a sonar ping to indicate that the jetliner crashed anywhere close to where the search operations are being carried out. Details available with us are vague. Our search teams require a particular starting point from where to begin looking. We have searched all the islands but there were no signs of the aircraft," Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai, chief of staff, ANC, said.
READ ALSO: 'Missing jet's transponder was deliberately disabled'
Air traffic controllers at Kolkata have also ruled out the possibility of the missing aircraft flying through Indian airspace, one of the two possibilities that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak suggested at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. If this theory was correct, the aircraft couldn't have avoided the Kolkata Flight Information Region.
The other alternative route that the flight, whose communication system is now believed to have been deliberately disabled, is to the Indian Ocean south of the Malacca Strait where the plane was last sighted on a Malaysian military radar. According to Pillai, this would have taken the aircraft south of the Andamans.
Speaking to TOI, air traffic controllers' guild secretary Sugata Pramanik said that while flight MH370 could have avoided detection on the Secondary Surveillance Radar, the blip by the huge Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft would surely have been spotted by the Indian Air Force that uses primary surveillance radars to detect such intrusions.
"If an aircraft wants to avoid being seen, they can easily become invisible to civilian radar by switching off the transponder. But it cannot avoid defence systems. The IAF has radars in multiple installations across the country and it is inconceivable that none of them spotted the odd blip with no flight clearance," he said. There are nine air defence identification zones in the country that are manned 24x7 to prevent an enemy aircraft from violating Indian airspace.
READ ALSO: Satellites scour Earth for clues
According Guild member Sushil Mondal, all hell would break loose if the IAF detected an aircraft that did not have air defence clearance. Any plane flying through Indian airspace is first required to submit the flight plan and manifest to the air traffic controls in its flight path. This is then relayed to the air force for permission.
"There are times when the Air Force finds a blip that does not match a flight plan. That usually happens when flight plans going missing at their end due to a system or link failure. They then immediately contact us for information. If the plane flight plan isn't of suspicious nature, a clearance is granted. Or else, it is asked to return to wherever it came from. In case, we too don't have any information of the aircraft, there will be trouble and the Air Force scramble jets to take the plane down. Nothing of the kind happened last Saturday," said Mondal.
Recently, the IAF scrambled a Su-30MKI in the western sector after noticing an unidentified 'blip' crossing over from Pakistan, It turned out to be a weather balloon.
Kolkata airport has an Automatic Dependence Surveillance Radar and Controller-Pilot Datalink Communication that enables it to not only trail planes when it is in the radar zone of 60 nautical miles or nearly 120 km and beyond through very high frequency radio but also through the data link when the plane goes out of voice communication range. There are large areas in the Kolkata Flight Information Region, particularly over Bay of Bengal, that have no radar coverage at present.
A radar has been installed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but is yet to be commissioned.
Officials suspect that there is an arrangement between Malaysia and US agencies. Not sufficient of what Malaysia knows is being transmitted to India or other countries involved in a 'wild goose chase'.
Missing aircraft couldn’t have entered our airspace undetected: India - The Times of India
