Jet flight briefly loses radio contact, makes Germany scramble combat jets

A Jet Airways Boeing 777 aircraft en route to London was intercepted by two German air force planes as it failed to communicate with the local air traffic control.

The incident occurred on Thursday and was reported on aviation safety websites after the intercept was filmed by a trailing passenger jet.

According to the Aviation Herald website, contact was lost when the aircraft, which was flying on a Mumbai-London route, was transitioning from Slovakian air traffic control to that of the Czech Republic. The website reported that contact was lost as the pilots were suspected to have tuned on to the wrong radio frequency.

According to the website, Germany dispatched two Eurofighter Aircraft when the Boeing 777 entered it's airspace. Radio contact with the aircraft was restored about 60 nautical miles north of Nuremberg, it said.

In a statement, Jet Airways said that communication was lost in German airspace and safely restored within a few minutes. As a precaution, the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests. The flight with 330 guests and 15 crew subsequently landed at London without incident. Jet Airways has duly reported the matter to the concerned authorities, including the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. "As part of the standard process, the flight crew of 9W 118 has been de-rostered pending investigation,” the statement said. 

Air traffic controllers track aircraft on radars and communicate with pilots on radio. Whenever an aircraft passes from one air traffic control area to another, pilots are required to establish contact with controllers. Other wise, the aircraft are treated as "unidentified".

This is the second instance of a Jet Airways flight losing radio contact in Europe. In April 2014, a few weeks after the disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines flight, a Jet Airways plane on the London-Mumbai route lost contact with controllers in Germany.

A probe revealed radio contact was lost as pilots took off their headphones but forgot to adjust the volume of the cockpit loudspeakers.