The UAE has no plans to change the flight paths of civilian aircraft following the interception of a UAE-registered aircraft by Qatari fighter jets, according to General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) chairman Sultan bin Saeed al-Mansouri.
“We have no plans at the present time,” Al-Mansouri told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai, adding that the UAE would file a complaint to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
According to the GCAA, the incident – which the UAE has called “provocative” – occurred when two Qatari fighter aircraft approached a UAE civilian passenger aircraft on a previously planned and declared flight path over Bahraini airspace.
According to Ismail Al Blooshi, GCAA assistant director General for Aviation Safety Affairs, the aircraft came within 700 feet of one another at high speed – with the Emirati plane taking an emergency climb in altitude.
Al Blooshi and the GCAA have called for an “immediate cessation of acts which endanger or compromise the safety of civil aviation.”
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