IAF strike on Pakistan: Should we worry about Twitter plane spotters?

That common users on the internet are the first to give us the news nowadays is no longer news. But top-secret military operations are expected to be more discreet than political developments or the deaths of prominent personalities.

Twitter users appeared to have gotten wind of the fact that the Indian Air Force was up to something against Pakistan much before the media even woke up.

A handful of 'plane spotters'—enthusiasts who track movements of civilian and military aircraft—posted details about the movement of aircraft of the Indian Air Force early on Tuesday. Plane spotters on the internet typically use aircraft-tracking software, which plots the location of aircraft in civilian airspace, and also track radio frequencies to listen in on communications.

CivMilAir, a popular UK-based plane spotter account, posted the coordinates of the Indian Air Force's Netra AEW aircraft (registration no: KW 3555) flying over New Delhi around 6am (IST). The Netra, which uses a radar developed by the DRDO on a Brazilian EMB-145 aircraft, was also tracked by Aircraft Spots, a plane spotter based in California.

At 9am, Aircraft Spots put up a map showing the Netra's flight track stretching from Himachal Pradesh up to Punjab, along the Pakistan border. The Netra, which has a radar capable of scanning 100s of kilometres, would have been crucial for coordinating the strikes by Indian fighter jets and also vectoring air defences to neutralise Pakistani attackers.

At 6.41am, CivMilAir posted an update showing an IL-78 aerial refuelling tanker (registration no: RK 3451) of the Indian Air Force approaching Delhi from the Haryana/Punjab direction. CivMilAir also posted the coordinates of HS 748 Avro and AN-32 medium transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force flying over Delhi.

INTELLIPUS, a Twitter handle that claims to be into monitoring and analysis of open source information, tracked the movement of the same Indian Air Force IL-78 (RK 3451) at 6.28am. INTELLIPUS also speculated the tanker was supporting aircraft like the SU-30MKI and MiG-29 that were on air combat patrol to deter possible Pakistani attack.

Another plane spotter, redandblackattack, also tracked the movement of numerous Indian Air Force aircraft including a C-17 transport aircraft approaching Kashmir, the Netra flying over Punjab at 8.30am and a C-130J transporter heading away from Delhi. Interestingly, redandblackattack also tracked a Pakistani IL-78 tanker (sourced from Ukraine) flying away from Rawalpindi at 8.48am.

The proliferation of live flight-tracking tools has been flagged as a security threat in the past. In December, CivMilAir attracted attention in December 2018 for tracking the flight path of Air Force One, when it was carrying President Donald Trump, on what was to be, ostensibly, a secret trip to Iraq.

Interestingly, as CivMilAir was tracking the movement of Indian Air Force aircraft early on Tuesday, it was also tracking the movement of Trump on Air Force One as he was flying to Vietnam for his summit with Kim il Sung!

The widespread availability of flight-tracking software, satellite imagery and, of course, social media for dissemination means the media is no longer the first source of information for matters where technology is remotely involved. And while the activities of these plane spotters are technically not illegal, the availability of near-real-time information on movement of military aircraft will not be music to the ears of a country's security apparatus.