Amritsar: A security alert was sounded at the Amritsar airport in Punjab with flight services disrupted for around three hours after three drone-like objects were spotted hovering in the airspace. The incident has raised safety concerns given the city’s proximity to the India-Pakitan border.
Sandeep Aggarwal, the officiating Director of Shri Guru Ramdas International Airport, told PTI that the incident occurred on Monday at 10:10 pm, with drone-like objects observed in the area for nearly three hours. Flight operations at the airport were suspended from 10:10 pm to 12:45 am and resumed only after clearance was received from the ATC tower.
The airport authorities promptly alerted the police about the spotting of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and an investigation has been launched in this connection. It is yet to be ascertained if they UFOs were drones and who was operating them.
Aggarwal added that assistance was also sought from the nearby Air Force station. He noted that this was the first time such objects had been reported in the area, raising serious concerns for the authorities, given the airport’s close proximity to the Indo-Pak border.
Airport SHO Hasimar said the airport authorities made a complaint and a thorough joint search operation with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was launched and several people from villages in the area were questioned but none had information about the flying objects around the airport.
The SHO said that typically, drones have blinking lights when they are airborne, but in this case, the airport authority observed a “single spotlight.” An investigation is ongoing, and it is too early to determine whether the objects were drones or something else.