Sunday 20 / October / 2024
Muscat: Flights between Muscat and Dubai were affected on Saturday evening after a flying drone forced the closure of Dubai and Sharjah airports.
“One of our aircraft suffered a delay. We were informed Dubai Air Traffic Control (ATC) had some issues in landing,” an official from the UAE based airline’s office in Muscat said.
According to Dubai International Airport official tweet, airspace around Dubai airport was closed from 7.25pm to 8.45pm on Saturday due to unauthorised drone activity resulting in flight diversions.
UAV operators
“Safety is our top priority and we remind all UAV operators that activities are not permitted within 5km of any airport or landing area,” the airport tweet added.
Sharjah airport was also closed. The closure at Sharjah began at 8pm and flights were cleared to take off again at 9pm.
The UAE media reported that 22 inbound flights were diverted due to drone activity.
Meanwhile, @News_Flight tweeted that 31 flights, including one to Muscat, were diverted due to the presence of an unauthorized drone over Dubai and Sharjah airports.
“Thirty-one diversions due to unauthorised drone around DXB airport: 22 to Dubai World Centre, five to Al Ain International, one to Muscat, one to Fujairah and two returned to their base,” the tweet added.
It is not the first time a drone has closed Dubai airport, one of the busiest in the world.
Delay in ninety flights
Last month it was shut down for half an hour because of “unauthorised drone activity”. That closure resulted in delays to 90 flights.
In June, the airport was closed to aircraft for more than an hour after a drone incursion.
