Prince Bernhard, consort of Queen Juliana of Netherlands piloting his Fokker aircraft intended to fly from Colombo, Sri Lanka on route to Phuket, Thailand. He had planned a short technical stopover at Port Blair, capital of Andaman and Nicobar islands, the sole airport in Bay of Bengal which permitted landing of civil aircraft.
The itinerary of Price Bernhard’s arrival was on Sunday, 7th of April, 1985 at 0800 hrs. Myself deputed as a liaison officer, being assigned to carry out immigration check and necessary protocol formalities, ensuring smooth arrival/departure, including serving of light refreshments and fueling of aircraft.Local, State Bank of India, was notified for exchange of foreign currency, required for fueling payments etc.
I anxiously looked forward for meeting a distinguished member of European royalty plus a brave war veteran. The prince got meritoriously decorated during World War II as an RAF pilot, having bravely fought against the formidable German enemies. Queen Elizabeth II, of Great Britain, specially conferred on him a highly coveted honorary rank of Air Marshal of RAF for rendering exceptional services.
Late Saturday evening, a message regarding postponement of this crucial visit was delivered to all concerned officials, including civil as well as military.
As Sunday happened to be a clear bright morning, a non-flight day for landing of any civil passenger aircraft, so being in highly relaxing holiday mood I was lazing at my modest haunt. All of a sudden message from our Police Chief arrived, badly disturbing my idyllic state of mind, “your guests have arrived, reach airport immediately”.
On arrival at airport found whole bevy of top notch officials waiting at airport exit. They left post haste, to resume their early morning disturbed sleep, after conveying me a crisp clear command, “deal with them appropriately”. Entering the lounge to my dismay confronted two plumpish Spanish pilots, Antonio and Michael. Unable to recover from a sudden shock, got another bolt from the blue, they loudly spoke in unison, “hope you are the immigration officer, please carry out desired formalities, so that we fly to Rangoon”.
As the mystery deepened, my brain working in a overdrive mode, following rapid turning of events, reflexively reacted, “gentlemen we will have to register a criminal case, and investigate, your arrival”. On hearing these words as though the ‘axe flew off its handle’, those burly Spaniards had to be physically controlled by a couple of plainclothes policemen.
A case was registered under foreigner’s act plus other relevant legal sections, at Central Crime Station (CCS) Aberdeen. Concerned civil and military intelligence sleuths were summoned to carry out a joint minute search of the ‘renegade’ aircraft.
On board they had a high powered communication set for telephonic connectivity, installed by the Spanish military. Once their plane attained height of a thousand feet, they could clearly communicate all across the globe. Both pilots were lodged in Andaman beach resort, with a stern warning to remain within perimeter of its premises. Detailed rummaging however revealed nothing incriminating.
Questioning of Spanish aviators unveiled that they were on staging of a “golden jubilee commemorative flight” which was undertaken fifty years ago in 1935, from Madrid to Manila. That was a highly covert mission cocooned in sworn secrecy for transporting some high denomination confidential documents.
Spain and USA having been bitterly embroiled in a hard pressed high intensity power struggle for supremacy in strategic southeast Asian archipelago of Philippines, since a considerable period.
This matter being of a high priority, possibly having intricate international ramifications, Lieutenant Governor of Islands asked Chief secretary for directly dealing with this sensitive issue. Reporting to Chief secretary, I apprised him about details of circumstantial landing of a small Spanish Cessna aircraft at Port Blair, under distressing circumstances.Further showed him a gold braided envelope addressed to HE Ferdinand Marcos, the President of Philippines, reportedly coming straight from the King Juan Carlos of Spain.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Manohar Lal Kampani had already apprised Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, about these sequence of events.
PM had consented for release of Spanish plane in anticipation of his formal approval, keeping in view crucial urgency of the matter.
Actually a serious faux pas occurred as the Naval ATC, they somehow missed or misplaced the message regarding rescheduling of royal visit. Instead, Spaniards who were traversing from Chittagong to Rangoon, encountered strong head winds, causing excessive fuel consumption leading to critically dipping of fuel level. This emergency situation forcing them to divert aircraft towards the ‘sensitive’ islands of Andamans, unlike familiarity of their habituated casual scenario of European landscape. Cessna approached our airspace from Northeastern direction of Narcondam Island. Whereas, the Fokker would have approached from Southwesterly direction, procedurally notifying its entry into Indian airspace.
Right from onset the approach of ATC Port Blair remained quite lackadaisical.On seeking permission to enter Indian airspace Spanish aircraft was not only authorized, but extended a warm welcome.
There is a wide visible difference between bearings of a Fokker and an Cessna aircraft, even the international registration markings on their tails PH (Netherlands) and EC (Spain) being easily unmistakably distinguishable. When Cessna was flying somewhere above Havelock Island, ATC realized gravity its mistake, but at this juncture it was too late. Cessna , at this belated stage was ordered to vacate Indian airspace immediately, but this being impossible at this crucial position for the beleaguered pilots to manage any detouring.
Within few minutes the Spanish pilot Antonio radioed back, “no choice left, approaching runway for landing, do whatever you think is appropriate”. Lt. Commander ATC only after applying of “intelligent arm twisting techniques”, reluctantly yielded to supply us a certified copy of this interesting vital exchange of “secret” conversation between ATC and the delinquent plane.
Wednesday afternoon, after completion of all procedural formalities, Cessna was refulled, the event of “innocent passage” through Indian airspace was clearly recorded in Spaniards passports, plus necessary ATC clearance obtained. Dramatically at this precise moment a posse of Naval police officers, led by a commander riding in three jeeps appeared at the scene. They reportedly carried a vital message from the Indian Naval chief. This communique spelled that aircraft should not be allowed to proceed, plus be subjected to further security checks for ruling out minutest remotest possibility of its involvement in any espionage activity.
Standing firmly my ground, ordered armed police guards to use force, if required for preventing these Naval officers from accessing the operational area of airport.
Simultaneously explaining them that flight of Cessna plane had been already been cleared by the PM of India. Further objections of Naval Chief were totally irrelevant at this crucial juncture of time. Left with no other choice they all stood silently in a single file in a state of shock, outside the tarmac area viewing the plane flyaway to its intended destination of Rangoon.
I kept wondering whether the “swapping of itinerary” of aircraft belonging to two different nations, makes and purposes of their journeys, was simply a providential intervention or merely an coincidental configuration?
This was fundamentally a harmless case of mistaken identity of civil aircraft. Just imagine the grave “mistake” committed by highly trained naval personnel on board USS Vincennes on the 3rd of July 1988. An Iranian airbus A 300 B203, while flying over Persian waters of Strait of Hormuz was targeted by SAM missile mistaking it for F-14 A, killing all 290 civilians on board.
Intrestingly these type of “Tomcat” fighter aircraft were exclusively operational only with the US and Iranian air forces.
During the recent past there have been several instances of civil passenger aircraft being targeted by military missiles as cases of “mistaken identity”. We are quite familiar, that ultimately operational decision maker behind every machine be it big or small, happens to be our small mistakable/unmistakable human brain.
It was a definitely a unique type of experience having International ramifications.
(Author of the article is former Deputy Commissioner of Police. Article is based on his experience during his posting in Andaman & Nicobar Islands)
