Air France has suspended overflights of the Red Sea after pilots spotted what the French flag carrier described as a ‘luminous object’ at high altitude off the coast of Sudan.
The decision was made on Sunday as two Air France flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Madagascar and Kenya were already in the air with flight plans that would have seen them overfly the now-prohibited area.
As a result, Air France flight AF-934 to Antananarivo and flight AF-814 to Nairobi ended up getting as far as the southern Mediterranean Sea on Sunday before suddenly turning back and diverting to Paris.
Air France flight AF-934 departed Paris again late on Sunday evening, and the new flight plan saw the Boeing 777-200 jet overfly Saudi Arabia and then fly south over Oman in order to avoid the Red Sea close to Sudan and Yemen.
In a statement posted to its official X account, Air France said: “As a precautionary measure, Air France has decided to suspend flights over the Red Sea area until further notice. As a result, the itinerary of some of its flights has been modified. Depending on their location, some aircraft may have turned around and returned to land at their departure airport, such as flight AF934 from Paris to Antananarivo.”
The statement continued: “This decision follows the suspicion of observation by a crew of a luminous object at high altitude in the Sudan area. Air France reminds that the safety of its customers and crews is its absolute imperative.”
A spokesperson for the airline dismissed earlier reports that pilots had seen a high-altitude missile and simply stated that the crew had spotted a bright or ‘luminous’ object.
In October, Air France said that it had opened an internal investigation after one of its planes flew over Iraq as neighboring Iran launched a huge ballistic missile attack on Israel.
Air France flight AF-662 from Paris to Dubai was flying through an air corridor that crosses Iraq at the time that Iran launched a barrage of missiles across its airspace. At the time the aircraft entered the corridor, the airspace was unrestricted, but just 15 minutes later, officials closed the airspace due to the threat to civilian airliners.
A slew of airlines were forced to quickly reroute or divert flights after Iran launched its attack on Israel with no warning. During the attack, pilots on a British Airways flight even managed to catch video footage of ballistic missiles flying through the sky, although they did not pose an immediate threat to the aircraft.
