In mid-flight, an Air France plane saw Iranian missiles pass against Israel

An Air France flight found itself amid missiles fired by Iran ten days ago against Israel. An internal investigation was opened by the company.

“Make the sky the most beautiful place on earth”, said Air France 25 years ago, in its advertisements. When you fly over the Middle East, at the moment, it is not so obvious… Flight AF662 of October 1, a Paris-Dubai, was over Iraq for 15 minutes after the start of the Iranian attack on Israel. Just fifteen minutes, the company says, and almost an hour before Iraqi airspace closed. Air France also recalls that the company already avoids Israel, Lebanon and Iran in its flight plans.

It’s not very reassuring… Usually, a zone of turbulence means that you put on your seat belt, that you fold down your tablet, that you raise your seat… But here, it simply meant ” your Paris-Dubai flight passes through a war zone.” The pilots saw the missiles from the cockpit. Missiles which, fortunately we are told, were operating at a much higher altitude. But imagine: you see ballistic missiles above, and below it is Iraq, behind it is Israel and in front is Iran.

Air France denies any negligence

So, it didn’t last long, because it must be said that these missiles travel quickly. Iran claims to have used its new hypersonic ballistic missiles which go at 15 times the speed of sound, up to 18,000 kilometers per hour.

The story ends well, but the plane had nothing to do there. Others avoided the area and turned away. The flight was still in Europe when the first alerts were sent. So why did flight AF662 end up there? Air France denies any negligence. The company, its crisis unit, the crew of the plane itself, the Iraqi air traffic controllers too and even the Quai d’Orsay: the investigation must determine the chain of responsibility.

For example, Air France has no longer flown over Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. At any given time, around 20,000 planes fly above the Earth.