Jet Airways plane loses radio contact, makes Germany scramble fighter jets

Mumbai: A reported communication failure on board a Jet Airways aircraft while flying in the German skies gave a scare to German authorities who feared a hijack and scrambled their fighter jets. The incident occured on Thursday when the Mumbai- London flight 9W-118, with 330 passengers and 15 crew members, lost contact with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) for a “brief period” while flying over Cologne. The pilots of the Boeing-777 lost contact due to a reported communication failure, the Jet Airways said in a statement. However, the communication was safely restored within minutes and the flight landed at its destination without any hitch, the statement said. The airline has de-rostered the pilots of the flight pending investigation and reported the matter to the civil aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). “Contact between Jet Airways flight 9W-118 from Mumbai to London Heathrow, of February 16, 2017, and the local ATC, was briefly lost while flying over German airspace,” the airline statement said. “As a precaution, the German Air Force (GAF) scrambled its fighter jets to ensure the safety of the flight and its passengers,” it said. The communication was, however, safely restored within a few minutes, the statement said.