US plane — No proof of anything illegal yet

Senior Intelligence Bureau sources said that the aircraft was flying over India after a trip from Thailand where the crew carried out lateral mapping work. IB officials have also contacted the US and UK embassies in an effort to find out the antecedents of the crew.

While investigation continued on Monday, the Alpha Charlie-6 Tango twin-engine aircraft remained parked at the airport, with a police jeep nearby, and its two-member crew holed up ina city hotel, unavailable to the press.

The aircraft belongs to a British company, Cooper Aerial Survey, and has an American registration number NV-71-E. The crew includes pilot Garry C J Cooper, a Briton, and navigator J M Condong, an Australian woman. They said that the the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had cleared them when they landed in Calcutta a day earlier.

The aircraft was on its way to Karachi from Bangkok, via Calcutta and Nagpur, when it landed at the airport for refuelling. After taking off from Calcutta, the aircraft had vanished from radar screens after it was last spotted by the Jamshedpur Air Traffic Controller.

When officials from Airport Authority of India (AAI) inspected the aircraft at Ahmedabad, they found that it was fitted with a camera. Experts from ISRO, including Director A K S Gopalan, were called to identify the equipment and the purpose for which it could be used.

In his statement to AAI officials, Cooper has stated that the camera was disconnected andnon-serviceable. He said that he had to make a technical landing at Ahmedabad for refuelling as fuel consumption of the aircraft had increased due to strong winds.

Officials of civil aviation, defence, police and airport kept mum about the investigations. Airport director R C Chitkara said only DGCA was authorised to reveal any development in the case. Airport sources said the aircraft would take off only after a clearance from the Director General of Civil Aviation.y