Incident involving Karachi ATC very serious, says India

India Wednesday termed as "very serious" an incident in which air traffic control (ATC) officials in Pakistan gave wrong frequency to an Air India London-Mumbai flight.

The Karachi ATC reportedly gave wrong frequency to the Air India flight on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday. Officials said this could have changed the flight path and led to a disaster.

"This is a very serious incident. We don't have a precedent of such an incident," Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman Alok Sinha told reporters at the India Aviation 2014, a civil aviation event that began here Wednesday.

"We are still deliberating at what level we should take up the issue... at diplomatic level or other level so that such incidents don't recur," he said.

The pilot was reportedly unable to connect to the Mumbai ATC despite trying different combinations. The flight later got in touch with the Ahmedabad ATC and established contact with the Mumbai ATC on the correct frequency.