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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘Flying Kremlin’ today became the world’s most tracked aircraft. The ongoing game of on-off transponders of two identical Russian planes in China made this journey quite mysterious. No one was able to decide which was the real plane. The mystery ended in the evening, when the actual IL-96-300PU landed in Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed Putin.
Most Tracked Flights: The entire day yesterday i.e. Thursday passed like an exciting chase sequence for global aviation watchers. Everyone was looking for only one thing in the sky and that was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘Flying Kremlin’. Two identical Russian planes were moving towards India and both were playing such a game, which filled almost the entire world with excitement. Sometimes the transponder of one aircraft would turn on, causing exact coordinates to be visible, and then the other would turn off.
Then after some time the roles of both the planes would change. This game of hide and seek, which lasted for about six and a half hours, was so mysterious that thousands of people kept tracking these planes continuously. Late in the evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘Flying Kremlin’ plane landed at Delhi Airport, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself welcomed President Vladimir Putin. After this, flight tracking site Flightradar24 revealed the secret and declared President Putin’s Flying Kremlin as the world’s ‘most tracked flight’.
Why did this mysterious game continue?
Putin is one of the most protected leaders in the world. His foreign travels have always been with multi-layered security protocols. Decoy aircraft strategy is also an important part of this protocol. The purpose of this strategy is to hide the Russian President from the eyes of the world and to ensure that at any cost the public or adversaries are not able to identify the plane in which Russian President Vladimir Putin is present. Same thing happened on Thursday also. The Russian President’s special presidential aircraft IL-96-300PU, known to the world as the Flying Kremlin, along with its clone aircraft was creating such suspense in the air that it became almost impossible to track it.
Transponder going on and off kept the suspense intact
The Russian President’s special presidential aircraft IL-96 i.e. Flying Kremlin maintained suspense in the sky for about six and a half hours. The transponders of both the planes played a special role in this game of suspense. Sometimes the transponder of one plane would be off, and sometimes that of the other plane. Sometimes both the planes would be visible in the sky together. Let us tell you that both these aircraft, equipped with setups like secure, encrypted communication systems, special anti-missile tech, extended range, high-level electronic protection and a secret command center, remained a subject of curiosity for the whole world.
The suspense ended only after landing in Delhi
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s presidential aircraft IL-96 Flying Kremlin landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport late in the evening, after which the suspense that had been going on for hours in the sky also ended. As soon as the Flying Kremlin stood in front of the red carpet, it became clear which aircraft President Putin was in. After a short wait, the doors of the plane opened and President Putin came out, who was welcomed by PM Narendra Modi himself.
