Mystery shrouds objects seen floating above Mumbai airport

Mystery continues to shroud four-five small objects that were spotted flying above Mumbai airport on Saturday, with multiple agencies, including the police, probing the matter, official sources said on Monday.

The objects were first sighted by a Jet Airways pilot shortly before he was to take off around 6 p.m.. He alerted the Air Traffic Control (ATC).

The ATC instructed the pilot to abort take off. He exited the main runway and later again came in the queue and finally took off after sometime when the objects seemed to have disappeared after a few minutes.

Despite speculation in various quarters of the objects being remote-controlled parachutes, radio controlled mini-gliders, Chinese lanterns, balloons, etc., official sources preferred to term them simply as 'unidentified objects' seen floating for a few minutes in the airport airspace.

They were espied moving at a height of around 150 feet and in a south-north direction countering strong winds blowing from the south-west at that time, pointing to a possibility that they (the objects) were being guided or controlled from terrestrial sources.

The sources declined to speculate on where the objects disappeared, or if they returned on land in the vicinity of the Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MIAL).

As per available indications, the objects were not picked up by most radars in and around Mumbai, including those belonging to the defence forces.

No agency has lodged a formal complaint with the police so far mainly due to confusion over jurisdiction or territorial issues.