Singapore Airlines is currently looking into an incident where a pilot who flew into Bangladesh airspace was unable to provide a clearance number when requested by air traffic controllers.
SQ326 was flying from Singapore to Frankfurt when it went into Bangladesh airspace at 3:15pm. The flight was routed via airspace under control of Dhaka Air Traffic Control (ATC) to avoid Cyclone Amphan, which has killed at least 84 people in India and Bangladesh.
An Air Defence Cleareance (ADC) number is issued by Bangladesh for each flight, added SIA, but the pilot did not have this number to hand.
“Although SIA has overflight permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, an additional Air Defence Clearance number is also issued by Bangladesh for each flight,” SIA said in its response on Monday.
“When Dhaka ATC requested for confirmation of the ADC number, the pilot did not have it immediately available as it had not been retrieved through the flight planning process before the flight departed Singapore.”
“SIA will, however, proactively launch an investigation into this oversight and tighten its procedures to ensure that there is no repetition,” said the airline.