Amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, a photo through a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that the Air India plane is the only plane flying above the Russia-Ukraine war zone. The post even claims that this plane was going to airlift Indian nationals who were stuck in Ukraine. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo showing Air India plane to be the sole plane flying above the Russia-Ukraine war zone.
Fact: Ever since Russia announced military operations in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Ukraine airspace remained closed to all civilian air traffic including India’s. The flight path of Air India’s AI121, which travels from New Delhi to Frankfurt does not go above Ukraine’s airspace since the closure of Ukraine’s airspace. The photo had been shared by a twitter user named QuebecTango on 24 February 2022, who later said the flight path shown was actually a glitch in a flight tracking application. As part of Operation Ganga, India’s evacuation flights are landing in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania to bring stranded Indians from Ukraine. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
The photo shows the fight number as AI121. According to flightradar24, the latest flight path of Air India’s AI121 which travels from New Delhi to Frankfurt, Germany does not go above Ukraine’s airspace. The same is found true with the flight tracking website plane finder.
On 24 February 2022, Russia announced military operations in Ukraine. Since then, the Ukraine airspace remained closed to all civilian air traffic. The Air India flight AI121 mentioned in the photo could not have entered Ukraine’s air space since 24 February 2022 as it was closed for all the countries. Presently, Ukraine’s airspace is still closed to all civilian air traffic. It can be seen from a flight tracking website that none of the flights are flying above Ukraine.
United States, Canada, the European Union, and several other European nations including Switzerland have barred Russian flights from entering their airspace. In retaliation, Russia’s state aviation agency banned airlines from 36 countries like Britain, Germany, Canada, etc. but not India. As seen from the flight path of AI121 above, Russian airspace is still accessible to a few countries like India.
The photo shared in the post had been shared by a Twitter user named QuebecTango on 24 February 2022, who later said the flight path shown was actually a glitch in a flight tracking application. He says that a screengrab was taken before the application corrected the path of the flight.
The Indian government had launched Operation Ganga to bring back Indians stranded in Ukraine. To fast-track these rescue operations, PM Modi had called in Indian Air Force to help evacuate Indian nationals. Private carriers like IndiGo, Air India Express, and SpiceJet are also operating special flights to evacuate stranded Indians from Ukraine. However, as the Ukraine airspace is closed, the evacuation flights are landing in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, etc.
To sum it up, amidst the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Ukraine airspace is closed for all civilian flights including that of India.
