India to take up copter issue with U.S.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV 27. India will take up with the U.S. officials the unauthorised sortie by a surveillance aircraft of a visiting U.S. naval destroyer over Chennai airspace ``so that instances of this nature are not repeated''.

Conceding that the U.S. helicopter did not file the mandatory flight plan, Foreign Office officials here maintained that the helicopter did not fly over Indian soil and immediately complied with instructions to return to the ship, USS John Young. ``There are no reports of any flight on land but we would stress to the U.S. Government to file the requisite flight plans in future,'' officials said.

India was not viewing the incident seriously since it is common for a surveillance helicopter to conduct a preliminary foray before a large ship is anchored. Moreover, the destroyer is visiting Chennai as part of Indo-U.S. cooperation in the fight against terrorism. The mistake was in not informing the authorities about its flight plan.

Officials sources said the helicopter took off from the destroyer at 5 a.m. on Monday while it was 40 nautical miles away from the port and on being asked to return to the decks, it promptly did so while the ship was 10 nautical miles away.

The issue was raised in the Rajya Sabha by Mr. J. Chittaranjan (CPI) and the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mr. O. Rajagopal, assured the CPI leader that his concern would be conveyed to the Defence Minister. The CPI(M) politburo and the party leader, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, also criticised the unauthorised flight of the helicopter.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : BJP to cash in on textbooks row
Next     : ICC's deadline to BCCI