In retrospect, there is reason to wonder. The Air France company announced this Wednesday that it had opened an “internal investigation” after one of its Paris-Dubai planes flew over Iraqi territory at the time when the Iranian missile attack towards Israel began.
The company indicates that on October 1 “information identified an upcoming attack on Israel by Iran with the sending of ballistic missiles. Consequently, and without waiting for instructions from the Iraqi authorities, Air France has decided to suspend flights over the country’s airspace by its planes from 5 p.m. universal time (i.e. 7 p.m. Paris time),” indicates an Air France press release sent to AFP.
“A specific corridor” to fly over Iraq
The company specifies that that day, its flight AF662, connecting Paris CDG to Dubai, “was flying over southern Iraq when the Iranian attack began, around 4:45 p.m. universal time. It left the country’s airspace shortly before 5 p.m. Iraqi airspace was only officially closed by local authorities at 5:56 p.m. universal time,” it said. The press release recalls that Air France aircraft “already avoided Israeli, Lebanese and Iranian airspace” and that “flying over Iraqi airspace was limited to a specific corridor used by all airlines”.
Our file on the conflict in the Middle East
As a reminder, ballistic missiles travel at an altitude higher than that at which airliners fly. But according to LCI, the pilots of flight AF662 “saw the missiles from the cockpit”, information that Air France did not wish to comment on.
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Questioned by LCI, Laurent Veque, member of the office of the National Union of Airline Pilots, declared that “the facts are established and known, the plane found itself in this Iraqi corridor in the middle of the hostilities unleashed by Iran against Israel.” “The light must be shed. […] The health, safety and working conditions commission (CSSCT) will certainly be contacted today, we want to know what happened,” he added.
