Airport disruption
Drone-like object report disrupts Delhi airport operations
New Delhi, India20 Aug 2017 · event dateapproximate location In short
What happened: an airport disruption at New Delhi on 20 August 2017.
Effect: confirmed by the sources.
Was it a drone? Reported, not confirmed. Who was behind it: not established.
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A pilot reported an unidentified drone-like object near Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on 20 August 2017. Contemporary police, airline and air-traffic accounts describe precautionary flight restrictions and diversions; a later government answer disputes an airport-wide shutdown.
AttributionNot established
Claims and evidence
3 sources · 3 original statements
Sources that repeat the same original statement count once: a number of articles is not a number of independent confirmations.
| Claim | Original source | Assessment |
|---|
| Drone AirAsia described an unidentified object rather than establishing drone identity. Source passage [1]“spotted unidentified object flying close to aircraft” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | AirAsia via Indian Express via Indian Express | supports Short literal passage read on public source page; original evidence origins are distinguished in evidence. |
| Impact Contemporary police account describes precautionary restrictions. Source passage [1]“operations at all the three runways were closed as a precautionary measure” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | Delhi Police via Indian Express via Indian Express | supports Short literal passage read on public source page; original evidence origins are distinguished in evidence. |
| Impact Air India separately reported diverted services. Source passage [2]“Two of our flights to Delhi, including one on a wide body, had to be diverted.” Passage checked word for word against the source on 16 Oct 2026. | Air India via Times of India via Times of India / TNN | supports Short literal passage read on public source page; original evidence origins are distinguished in evidence. |
Source genealogy
Grouped by recorded original statement, not by publisher. Unmapped sources have unknown dependency; linked statements may also share an earlier origin. This is not an independence score.
- AirAsia via Indian Express
- Indian Express: Delhi Police and AirAsia statements [1] · Relayed statement
- Delhi Police via Indian Express
- Indian Express: Delhi Police and AirAsia statements [1] · Relayed statement
- Air India via Times of India
- Times of India / TNN: air traffic and Air India accounts [2] · Relayed statement
- Unknown dependency
- Rajya Sabha: civil aviation written answer338, printed page154 [3]
Show source graph
Left: publishers; right: recorded original statement. Converging lines show shared origin, not publication order. Dashed nodes have unknown dependency.
What we know
Contemporary reports describe disrupted flights and diversions. A later parliamentary answer says only one runway was suspended while others continued operating. The exact extent and duration of the restrictions remain disputed.
Indian Express relays Delhi Police and AirAsia statements. The Times of India’s separate TNN report interviews an air-traffic official and Air India about disruption. AirAsia’s unidentified-object statement is shared, not independent drone identification. A later official parliamentary answer provides a conflicting account of the restriction’s extent.
What remains unknown
No technical drone identification or operator established. Reports variously give about 40 minutes and 46 minutes and refer to an earlier separate scare that day. No exact closure duration, airport-wide shutdown or observation clock adopted. The parliamentary answer dated19December2017 concerns20August but contradicts contemporary all-runway accounts.
Operator attribution: Not established. No operator established in the selected reporting.
How the story changed
Unidentified-object report leads to precautionary restrictions and diversions; exact extent disputed. [1]
Parliamentary answer disputes an airport-wide shutdown and describes a single-runway suspension. [3]
Editorial changes
- Revision 1 · 16 Oct 2026Curated dossier created after checking the cited sources line by line.
Cite this dossier
Permanent page · Revision 1
Chicago
DroneLedger. “Drone-like object report disrupts Delhi airport operations.” Dossier delhi-airport-drone-like-object-2017-08-20, revision 1, updated 16 Oct 2026. https://droneincidents.com/incident/delhi-airport-drone-like-object-2017-08-20/v1/
APA
DroneLedger. (16 Oct 2026). Drone-like object report disrupts Delhi airport operations (Dossier delhi-airport-drone-like-object-2017-08-20, revision 1). https://droneincidents.com/incident/delhi-airport-drone-like-object-2017-08-20/v1/
Dataset DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23345422
Cite the revision you used: later revisions may change evidence states.
Curated dossier · sources checked line by line on 16 Oct 2026
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