India Issues NOTAM Designating Temporary Hazardous Exclusion Zone Over Bay of Bengal for Missile and Aerial Testing

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has issued a Notice to Airmen designating a temporary hazardous exclusion zone over the Bay of Bengal in connection with scheduled aerial and missile testing activities. The NOTAM alerts pilots, air traffic managers, and maritime operators to potential hazards that could affect flight safety in the affected area.

AAI is India's designated Aeronautical Information Service Provider and operates under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, coordinating with the Ministry of Defence for this notice. NOTAMs are distributed by civil aviation authorities based on inputs from security agencies rather than issued directly by the Defence Research and Development Organisation or the Ministry of Defence.

The Bay of Bengal's maritime corridor can support long-range testing trajectories for systems including strategic ballistic missiles of the Agni series, tactical and cruise missiles such as Pralay, Nirbhay, and BrahMos, and Ballistic Missile Defence interceptor trials. National airspace regulation in India rests on the Aircraft Act, 1934 and the Aircraft Rules, 1937.

The Bay of Bengal carries international air routes linking South Asia with Southeast Asia. India's territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles, and when military testing extends beyond that line into the Exclusive Economic Zone or international airspace over the High Seas, international legal frameworks apply.

Under Articles 58 and 87 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), all states retain freedom of navigation and overflight in the EEZ and on the High Seas, while states conducting military exercises must exercise due regard for the interests of others. Article 3(d) of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation (1944) further obliges contracting states to ensure that state aircraft operations, including military aircraft, have due regard for the safety of civil aviation. NOTAM standards themselves are governed by Annex 15 to the Chicago Convention under the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Temporary exclusion zones over busy maritime and air corridors are a recurring feature of how coastal states with active missile programs manage testing without formally closing international airspace outright. The mechanism relies on advance notice through the aeronautical information system rather than physical enforcement, placing the burden on operators to track and route around a published hazard area.

This works because civil aviation authorities such as AAI act as the interface between defence testing schedules and the ICAO-governed NOTAM system, keeping the legal responsibility for due regard distributed between the state conducting the test and the states whose aircraft transit the zone. The framework under UNCLOS and the Chicago Convention does not require testing states to seek permission from other nations for activity in the EEZ or High Seas, only that they exercise due regard.

What happens next depends on the duration and geographic extent of this specific NOTAM, and whether the exclusion zone overlaps with the busiest published air routes between South and Southeast Asia during the active window.