NEW DELHI, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian-made cargo aircraft that flouted the Indian airspace late on Friday is currently awaiting permission for take-off at Mumbai airport, an airport spokesman said on Saturday.
The Indian Air Force forced an An-124 plane, en route from the U.S. military base in Diego Garcia to Afghanistan's Kandahar, to land on suspicions that it was a military plane flying on a civilian flight code. It landed at Mumbai airport at 10:40 p.m. local time (17:10 GMT) on Friday, according to an airport source.
The aircraft owned by a private Russian airline, Volga-Dnepr, was carrying U.S. military goods, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said.
IAF spokesman T.K. Singha said the airline had applied for permission to fly over India to the country's Department of Civil Aviation, not to the Defense Ministry.
"For aircraft carrying military cargos there is a separate transit procedure, and the airline could not but know it," Singha told RIA Novosti.
The Antonov An-124 aircraft can carry cargos weighing up to 150 metric tons and is one of the world's largest cargo planes.
Talks between Russia and Ukraine are currently underway to resume its production at the Aviastar-SP plant in Ulyanovsk, a Russian city on the Volga.-
