New Delhi, April 23:

A small plane that appeared to tail an aircraft carrying the Indian premier sparking a national security scare belonged to the military, officials said today.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Boeing-737 was ordered to circle over New Delhi for 15 minutes late Tuesday as a precaution after air controllers saw an unidentified blip on the radar.

“An equipment failure in a transponder installed in an Indian airforce Dornier caused the blip on the (radar) screens which seemed to be chasing the prime minister’s plane,” a senior airforce official told AFP.

In fact both planes were on their proper courses.

“There was no security breach,” the official said a day after the airforce scrambled warplanes to escort Singh’s aircraft down to safety. The prime minister was returning from a day-long trip to the eastern Indian city of Ranchi.

Singh’s special plane only recently has been equipped with military radars and other anti-missile defence systems against possible attacks by anti-Indian rebels.