The Somali Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) said on Saturday that the country’s airspace was under its full control and that there was no security or risk issue.
” The SCAA guarantees the safety of all flights and passengers that use Somalia’s airspace,” it added in a two-sentence post on X.
It came after Somaliland said in a statement that a Qatar Airways flight from Doha and destined for Uganda was incorrectly instructed by air traffic controllers in Mogadishu.
The flight allegedly found itself on a collision course with an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that had departed from Addis Ababa and was en route to Dubai.
“But fortunately, the TCAS (Traffic Avoidance Collision System) device attached to the plane gave an urgent warning and told the presence of the other plane,” the Somaliland statement said on Feb. 24.
“The planes were at a dangerous distance from each other, but the equipment attached to the two planes was saved,” it added.
Qatar Airways and the SCAA did not publicly comment on the alleged incident, which came amid tensions between Somalia’s civil aviation authority and Somaliland.
Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991 but is not internationally recognized, insists it has the right to exercise control over its airspace
However, the SCAA, based in Mogadishu, says it is the sole agency mandated by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to manage Somalia’s airspace.
The row escalated in January after the SCAA denied an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa access to Somaliland, saying it lacked proper clearance to land in Hargeisa.
The turning away of that flight marked a major escalation of a diplomatic row between Somalia and Ethiopia over a maritime agreement Addis Ababa signed with Somaliland earlier this year.
