Over 70 years ago, Ian Fleming created the fictional character of a secret service agent called James Bond, code named 007, who had the licence to kill. On September 1, 1983, a Korean Airlines jet, flight 007, on a scheduled flight from New York to Seoul via Anchorage, was shot down by a Russian Air Force Sukhoi fighter plane when the Korean flight had deviated from its flight path due to a navigational error. All 246 passengers and 23 crew were killed. One of the passengers was the daughter of Hans Ephraimson-Abt, who began an organisation to aid the victims of air accidents. His initiative resulted in a big push at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to publish rules regarding conflict risk. But this was shot down by Russia and its allies in ICAO.
Cases of misidentification
On July 3, 1988, an Iran Air plane, flight 655, was shot down by a United States Navy warship, USS Vincennes, over the Strait of Hormuz. All 290 passengers were killed when the ship’s missile brought down the plane which was misidentified to be a fighter plane. During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), U.S. patrolling required civilian aircraft to transmit the Identification Friend or Foe mode code. Apparently, the warship crew identified the Iranian aircraft to be a fighter and orders were issued to shoot it down.
On November 22, 2003, a DHL Cargo plane took off from Baghdad for Bahrain. As the flight was making a rapid climb out, a surface to air missile launched by terrorists struck the left wing between the engine and the wing tip. The crew lost all hydraulics and because the fuel tank was full, there were no fuel vapours to explode in the exposed fuel tank. The crew controlled the flight using only differential engine thrust and managed to carry out a safe landing, displaying exceptional skill. This writer had the privilege of attending a special presentation by the crew at the Flight Safety Foundation IASS 2004 seminar at Shanghai, China.
On February 27, 2019, just after Balakot, when fighter planes of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Pakistan Air Force were engaged in a dogfight, an IAF Mi-17 helicopter was shot down by a surface-to-air missile of the IAF’s air defence system. Six personnel lost their lives in what was a serious error. Here again, the helicopter was wrongly identified as a foe.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers and 15 crew, was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a surface-to-air missile missile while flying over eastern Ukraine.
All these examples highlight the issue of misidentification.
Post September 11, 2001, there are specific procedures to be followed in the event of track deviation due to weather, or a failure of navigation signals. Specific radio procedures are implemented for crew to comply with, else air force fighter jets may shoot down a civilian aircraft if perceived to be flying in a suspicious manner. On February 16, 2017, an Indian airline flight, Jet Airways flight 9W 118, with 330 passengers and 15 crew members, from Mumbai to London, was cruising at 36,000 feet. It flew over a few flight information regions without maintaining radio contact with the air traffic control of the region. The plane had not deviated from its assigned track. When it entered German airspace north of Cologne, the German Air Force deployed two of its Eurofighter Typhoons to intercept the Indian plane. Had the Jet Airways crew not responded to the Germans on an emergency frequency, they could have been shot down.
India’s safety regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), did a cover up terming it as a malfunction of the aircraft’s communication system. If it was really a communication failure, the aircraft crew should have been using the necessary transponder code and ground stations would have known that it was an aircraft facing communication failure. Fighter jets would not have been deployed to intercept it.
Conflict zones, their dangers
The case of an Azerbaijani airliner, while on a flight from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny, in Russia, on December 25, 2024, but which crashed near the Kazakhstan city of Aktau after being diverted, has been the result of another event where a Russian anti-aircraft defence system may have caused the loss of lives. Of the 67 passengers on board, there were some survivors. For a state to get away with it by just saying ‘sorry’ does not bring back the precious lives lost. The aircraft had veered from its scheduled route due to fog. There is also the issue of GPS spoofing and false signals or a loss of signals that affect navigation.
More than 500 people have lost their lives due to civil airlines being shot down. With growing wars and conflicts, flying over or near conflict zones is becoming dangerous, especially when there are countries which do not respect international borders and there are rogue elements who cause trouble by interfering with GPS signals.
The Indian regulator’s silence
This brings the focus on a serious issue. Do airlines in India have comprehensive training in place for pilots to recognise jammed signals and do the airlines have standard operating procedures in place for taking over the navigation with alternate methods? There are reports of GPS errors or failures in the airspace over Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. With a rapid expansion of flights and with large numbers of aircraft being inducted, do airlines in India have enough experienced pilots? For example, Air India operates many of its non-stop flights to the west coast of the United States on routes that are avoided by American carriers. There are also reports of some leased aircraft with Air India not being equipped for extended flights over mountainous terrain. We hear nothing from the DGCA on what preventive measures it is taking in these cases.
We have had three passenger aircraft shot down by the Russians or Russian-linked agents. We have had the U.S. Navy shooting down a passenger airliner. We have had a cargo aircraft shot by a terrorist group with missiles supplied by either Russia or the U.S. as conflicts in West Asia have involved one or the other super power aiding sides in the conflicts. The large-scale use of drones and defence forces using missiles to shoot down flights make the skies really unsafe for passenger aircraft while flying over conflict regions. There is another danger. Skill levels have dropped as there is now rapid training which has resulted in degraded monitoring to assess pilot proficiency. The world has to wake up and take cognisance of this new danger. Indian aviation may be expanding rapidly but, at the same time, there is no urgency or compulsion to ensure the quality of pilots’ flying skills. As James Reason’s Swiss cheese theory explains, the holes in the cheese are lining up.
Do we act now or let another disaster pass?
Captain A. (Mohan) Ranganathan is a former airline instructor pilot and aviation safety adviser. He is also a former member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council (CASAC), India
Published – January 23, 2025 12:16 am IST