India clears grounded chartered US marine plane

Mumbai / New Delhi, Oct 18 (ANI): India cleared the release of a chartered North American aircraft carrying US Marines on Sunday afternoon.

The chartered Boeing 767, carrying commandos of the US 205 Marine Unit, was made to land at Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, for violating Indian airspace.

Earlier, in the day, U S Embassy officials were working with the Ministry of External Affairs, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) to carry out the necessary paper work to clear the release of the plane.

The pilot of the aircraft failed to ascertain the correct AOR signal when asked for it by the air traffic controller (ATC).

The aircraft was asked to land after its call sign was not registered.

The aircraft was travelling from Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Bangkok.

A call sign is a signal code that all foreign military aircraft crossing Indian airspace use to communicate with the Indian Air Force.

In June, a Russian AN-132 aircraft, hired by the NATO forces working in Afghanistan was forced to land in Mumbai airport on similar circumstances. (ANI)