Large advertising balloon breaches security at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport, FIR filed

A balloon advertising a construction company breached the no-fly zone at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport, raising serious security concerns.

The police in Bengaluru on Monday said an unauthorised advertising balloon, huge in size, that appeared inside the restricted operational zone of the city’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) earlier this year triggered serious security concerns.

Investigations are underway to determine how the balloon entered this sensitive area. (Representational Photo/Unsplash)

According to officials, the incident occurred on January 5, when a large balloon carrying the name of a construction company was spotted flying within the airport’s no-fly area.

Although the balloon was noticed and checked on the same day, a formal complaint was filed much later, on February 8, by an official from the Aviation Security Group (ASG) of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), news agency PTI reported.

In his complaint, the ASG official stated that security personnel immediately moved in after noticing the balloon and conducted a thorough inspection. The checks confirmed that the balloon had entered the airport’s Red Zone, a strictly prohibited area where aerial objects are not permitted under rules laid down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the report stated.

Police also said the presence of the balloon inside this sensitive zone amounted to a clear breach of aviation safety regulations and posed a potential risk to airport operations.

A first-information report (FIR) has been registered in connection with the incident, and authorities are now investigating how the balloon was launched and who was responsible for violating the airport’s security norms, the report noted.

(With inputs from PTI)