Germany scrambled its fighter jets as a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to London went into radio silence over Cologne last week. German authorities feared that the plane with 330 passengers and 15 crew members was hijacked and ordered the jets into the skies.
Flight 9W-118 lost contact with the air traffic control for a “brief period”. The pilots of the Boeing-777 cou.d not contact the ground owing to a reported snag, Jet Airways said in a statement here on Sunday.
Lands safely
However, the link was quickly restored, and the flight landed at its destination without any hitch, the statement said.
The airline has derostered the pilots pending investigation, and reported the matter to the civil aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
“Contact between Jet Airways flight 9W-118 from Mumbai to London Heathrow, of February 16, 2017, and the local ATC, was briefly lost while flying over German airspace,” the airline statement said.
“As a precaution, the German Air Force (GAF) scrambled its fighter jets to ensure the safety of the flight and its passengers,” it said.
The communication was, however, safely restored within a few minutes, the statement added.
