Passengers on Paris-Dubai flight AF662 passed between the bombs. As revealed by LCI, an Air France Boeing 777 flew over Iraq on Tuesday October 1, while 200 Iranian missiles were crossing Iraqi airspace at that time to strike Israel. “Good luck !” would then have liked Iraqi air traffic control. The Boeing was indeed lucky, since it landed safely in Dubai at 10:35 p.m., after having taken the corridor which ran along the Iraqi border at the same time as a swarm of missiles.
Despite the absence of a disaster, the affair is causing turmoil at Air France, which announced this Wednesday, October 9, the opening of an internal investigation. Because the crew of the flight would not have received any order from the airline asking them to turn away before entering the Iraqi air zone, while at the same time, another Air France flight which entered the Iraqi sky was hijacked by the company: Paris-Bombay flight AF218, which immediately turned around. Another flight AF257, which left Singapore for Paris, landed in Delhi to load the fuel needed for a detour to the South. Other Lufthansa airline flights, British Airways and KLM had already diverted in the hour before.
READ ALSO: Ami Ayalon, former head of Israeli secret services: “We know who the Iranians meet at every moment”
The attack known more than an hour in advance
In a press release sent to AFP, Air France defends its choices, citing timing and a specific air corridor. “On October 1, information identified an upcoming attack on Israel by Iran with the sending of ballistic missiles. As a result, Air France 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 the company. It then specifies that that day, its flight AF662 linking 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 5:00 p.m.,” adds Air France, specifying that “Iraqi airspace was not officially closed by the local authorities until 5:56 p.m. universal time.”
The incomprehension, however, comes from the fact that the attack had been announced in the European and American media at least an hour before it took place and the entry of flight AF662 into the Iraqi sky. An AFP alert in particular announced, from an American source, “an imminent attack by ballistic missiles against Israel” from 3:49 p.m. Paris time. For some, it was therefore possible to further anticipate and prevent this danger by widening the time instructions for non-entry into the airspace concerned, Air France claiming to “permanently” monitor the geopolitical situation of the territories served by its planes.
READ ALSO: Israeli war against Iran: the idea is no longer taboo for Westerners
The pilots “saw the missiles” from the cockpit
Air France also recalls in its press release that its aircraft “already avoided Israeli, Lebanese and Iranian airspace” and that “flying over Iraqi airspace was limited to a specific corridor used by all airlines”. Other companies were also slow to react: according to the newspaper The EchoesEmirates, Qatar Airways and Wizz Air also had flights in the area when the attack began.
In theory, ballistic missiles travel at a higher altitude than 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. Questioned by LCI, Laurent Veque, member of the office of the National Union of Airline Pilots, declared that “the light must be shed”: “The health, safety and working conditions commission (CSSCT) will certainly be referred to today , we want to know what happened.”
