Nearly 24 hours after a UAE Air Force aircraft and its crew were detained at Kolkata’s NSC Bose Airport after the plane was found carrying arms and ammunition, Customs and Airport Authority of India officials are waiting for the External Affairs and Defence Ministries’ nod to let the aircraft fly.

No “arrests or seizures” have been made yet even as the aircraft and its crew officially remained “detained” and were interrogated by the Customs and Air Force officers. “We have interrogated the crew of the UAE military aircraft and so far just detained them. We have made no arrests or seizures. It seems there was a mis-communication due to which the aircraft did not declare its arms and ammunition it was carrying,” Customs public relations officer at the NSC Bose Airport said. “We are awaiting clearance from External Affairs and Defence ministries before we can let them go.”

The aircraft, a C-130 military plane with 10 people on board, landed at the NSC Bose Airport around 5 pm on Sunday after it requested a non-scheduled stop for re-fuelling. During checks, the plane, flying to Xianyang International Airport in China from Abu Dhabi, was found carrying arms and explosives, in violation of the declaration it made to land. “It was a non-scheduled stop for the aircraft. And according to rules our officers checked it,” the Customs PRO said. “Though the aircraft had documents from the Union Defence Ministry allowing it to fly in the Indian airspace, there was no mention of the baggage of arms and ammunition in those documents.”

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