Four Suspicious Drones Trigger One-Hour Shutdown at Amritsar Airport, International Flights Diverted

Drones Freeze Amritsar Airport, Flights Thrown Off Course

On Thursday evening, February 5, 2026, flight operations at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport in Amritsar were suspended for nearly an hour after four suspicious drone-like objects were spotted hovering in the northern airspace near the Raja Sansi police station area at around 8:40 PM, prompting Air Traffic Control to immediately shut the airspace as a precautionary security measure; operations remained halted until about 9:41 PM while the CISF and local police carried out extensive sanitisation checks, during which two international flights—one from Sharjah and another from Kuala Lumpur—were diverted to Chandigarh and New Delhi respectively, and several domestic flights were delayed.

The incident triggered heightened security concerns due to Amritsar’s close proximity to the India-Pakistan border and came just a day after customs officials seized four high-end DJI Matrice drones from a passenger arriving from Kuala Lumpur, raising suspicions of a possible link between the seizure and the aerial intrusion, while also reviving memories of large-scale drone disruptions witnessed during the “Operation Sindoor” period in May 2025.

Airport operations have since returned to normal, though authorities continue to enforce a strict ban on personal drones and quadcopters within a 25-km radius of the international border and a 3-km radius around the airport and military installations.