Mid-air scare: Did 9/11-like terrorism threat lead German fighter planes to tail Jet Airways flight after it fell silent, or was it human error?

A Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to London was recently shadowed by fighter aircraft from the German Air Force when it fell silent over the European country's airspace after communication got snapped with the German Air Traffic Control (ATC). Jet Airways, in a statement, said that the flight managed to land safely in London after contact was restored and that the matter has been reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Also read: Jet Airways flight to London loses contact briefly with ATC while flying over Germany

What happened?

According to an official statement from Jet Airways: "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. Communication was safely restored within a few minutes."

The carrier added: "As a precaution, the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests. The flight with 330 guests and 15 crew members subsequently landed at London without an incident. Jet Airways has duly reported the matter to the concerned authorities including the DGCA. As part of the standard process, the flight crew of 9W 118 has been de-rostered pending investigation."

Was there a terror scare?

While there is no official word yet on what the German authorities suspect, parallels can be drawn with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States – also known as the 9/11 terror attacks – in which planes were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

In all four cases of the aircraft hijacks at that time – a fourth aircraft crash-landed in a field – the hijackers had ensured that radio silence was maintained by the pilots as the planes were steered towards their intended targets. The German authorities may have suspected something similar when they were met with radio silence from Jet Airways flight 9W 118.

What's more, the Islamic State group – also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – has been posturing with its terror threats against European nations for quite some time, and has even perpetrated a few. That would have been playing on the minds of the officials manning the ATC in Germany.

Whatever the case, the incident showed the preparedness of Germany in case of a 9/11-style attack on its soil.

Human error?

A new possibility that has arisen is that of human error, and something the DGCA has to probe. Aviation Herald, which broke the news, later reported that the temporary radio silence – alternatively loss of communication – could have been due to the crew member in charge of communication goofing up on some numbers.

The Aviation Herald report said the aircraft stopped transmitting when it was being handed over from the Bratislava ATC to the one at Prague Centre. The radio frequency of Prague communication centre is 132.890 MHz, while the crew may have tuned in to 132.980 MHz, and the swapping of the digits resulted in Prague not receiving any communication from them.