According to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) released by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) on Saturday night and examined by ForPol, the only runway at the Rahim Yar Khan airbase in Pakistan’s Punjab province has been declared non-operational for a week following India’s military strike there. The NOTAM went into force on Saturday, May 10, at 4 p.m. Pakistan time (4:30 p.m. IST), and it will remain in effect until at least 4:59 a.m. Pakistan time (5:29 IST) on May 18.
Without providing information, the NOTAM stated the closure is the result of ongoing construction and that it will not be accessible for airplane operations. This significant airfield in Pakistan’s southern Punjab region was temporarily closed, and the length of time it was closed supports rumors that the facility’s runway was struck by an Indian missile and required significant repairs.
The Indian Air Force used satellite images to establish during a briefing on Operation Sindoor Sunday night that Indian strikes had damaged and damaged the runway at the Rahim Yar Khan air base.
The NOTAM said, “RWY NOT AVBL FOR FLT OPERATION WIP.”
Work in progress is indicated by the use of the code “WIP” in a NOTAM, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Any work being done on the airport surface is referred to as “WIP” by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The NOTAM suggests that work is being done on the runway itself because it expressly names the airbase’s runway.
Sheikh Zayed International Airport is located on the Rahim Yar Khan airbase. According to airport data on Flightradar24, the only runway, Runway 01/19, is 3,000 meters (9,843 ft) long and has a bituminous surface.
During a four-day military confrontation, India struck several important Pakistani military targets, including the airbase, before the two nuclear-armed neighbors reached a ceasefire agreement on Saturday night. India used “air-launched precision weapons” from Indian fighter planes on Saturday to strike six Pakistani military locations, including the airfield. The other five targets were Rafiki, Murid, Chaklala, Sukkur, and Juniya. The Indian response came after Pakistan’s “escalatory” and “provocative” activities, in which the Indian military prevented Pakistan’s attempts at air invasions at several different areas.
As part of “Operation Sindoor,” India launched targeted attacks on nine terror infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early hours of Wednesday, sparking the bloodiest conflict between India and Pakistan in decades. These attacks were in retaliation for the April 22 deadly incident at Pahalgam, where terrorists supported by Pakistan shot and killed 26 persons, nearly all of them were tourists.
The tensions escalated significantly after India’s precision strikes on terror infrastructure early on Wednesday. Pakistan launched drone and missile attacks against India along the international border and the Line of Control, while India neutralized the Pakistani attacks and retaliated by striking Pakistani military assets across the country.
