Pilot of plane hijacked in 1999 says Afghan airspace very risky, explains why
The Taliban 'government' may say something and somewhere down their forces may be doing something else making Afghan airspace very risky in future, former Air India pilot Devi Sharan whose IC-814 was hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999 said.
Taliban ground fighters do not follow rules and hence Afghan airspace remains very risky, Captain Devi Sharan, the former Air India pilot whose IC-814 was hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999 said at a time India is operating evacuation flights to and from Kabul. India has been allowed two evacuation flights daily as the airspace remains restricted. Back-to-back blasts near Kabul airport on Thursday threatened the security of the evacuation drive countries are continuing, but threats are in the airspace as well, Sharan said.
"There is a lot of grey area. We have to always monitor the corridor route which we are following because the Taliban government says something and somewhere down their forces are doing something else. In such a situation, entering Afghanistan's airspace is very risky. They can always shoot the aircraft down," Sharan told ANI.
"I have operated many times over Afghanistan while flying to Europe and the USA. Whenever we used to hear the voice of air traffic controllers who were mainly American people, it used to give us a sense of security. We never felt the need to take an alternate route due to an emergency while we used to be en-route Kabul and Kandahar. We were quite comfortable if we had to land in Kabul or Kandahar in case of a technical emergency. We were quite satisfied with that because we used to listen to American traffic controllers on ATC," said Captain Devi.
Earlier, Devi Sharan had said that he did not find any change in the Taliban fighters after the fall of Kabul on August 15, from their photos and videos. Seeing Taliban fighters roaming with weapons on Kabul street, Devi Sharan remembered the fighters who surrounded his hijacked plane in Kandahar and said that unlike the claims made about a refined Taliban 2.0, he could hardly spot any difference.
On resuming air operations between India and Kabul, Devi Sharan said, "If our government and their government make sure that no untowardly incident will take place and everything is safe, then only we should resume air operations otherwise we should not take the risk."
