Flight scheduled to fly to India lands in Male!

An aircraft with deep earth scanning capabilities which was parked at the Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport for the past three days had left for the Maldives yesterday.

Earlier the State Transport Minister Ashok Abeysinghe had stated that the aircraft was scheduled to leave for India.

The Basler BT 67 aircraft belongs to the Spectrum Air ZS-AS category and has the capability to scan the earth to a depth of 1000 metres.

Expressing his views, Abeysinghe said, “This is a small aircraft which is on its way from Indonesia to Mumbai. They had landed in Sri Lanka on the way to Mumbai. This is a normal occurrence and the air craft is scheduled to depart on July 09th.”

However, this aircraft had left the island yesterday and headed to the Maldives. The aircraft is currently parked at an airport in the Maldives.

Issuing a statement, the Civil Aviation Authority stated that although the aircraft was scheduled to fly to Mumbai, it had changed its decision and decided to fly to the Maldives instead.

The statement further stated that this aircraft is scheduled to fly through Seychelles, Pemba and Beira on its way to South Africa.