‘No truth’ in rumours of Israeli plane

Civil Aviation Authority and minister say no aircraft flew in from Tel Aviv

Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry yesterday rejected rumours about an Israeli aircraft landing in Pakistan.

“There is absolutely no truth in the rumours that an Israeli plane landed at any airport in Pakistan, as no such plane landed at any airport in Pakistan,” a CAA spokesperson said in a statement.

Speculation about a plane allegedly flying in from Tel Aviv to Islamabad sparked an uproar on social media that prompted some journalists and former interior minister and Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal to seek an explanation from the government about it.

Responding to Iqbal’s tweet, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the government of Pakistan “would not engage in any secret dialogue with [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi or Israel”.

Journalist’s tweets

Reports about the presence of a suspected Israeli plane at the Islamabad airport surfaced on social networks on October 25, after the editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Avi Scharf, tweeted that a plane flew from Tel Aviv to Islamabad. He alleged in his tweet the plane was not flying directly from the Israeli capital. Instead, it followed a “trick” route by landing in Amman briefly to make it look like an Amman-Islamabad flight.

In a further series of tweets, the Israeli journalist appeared not sure if the plane landed in Islamabad, as he said that the plane made a stopover in Amman, switched over to a different air traffic control (ATC) frequency, flew over Saudi Arabia and then lost track over the Gulf of Oman. It later reappeared on the flight radar and was seen descending towards Islamabad using the same ATC frequency.

Pakistan’s CAA, however, has firmly rejected any such incident. Pakistan and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, therefore, aircraft registered in both countries cannot enter each other’s airspace.