Air France announced on Wednesday that it had opened an "internal investigation" into the overflight of Iraqi territory on Oct. 1 by one of its planes, flying from Paris to Dubai, at the same time as the Iranian missile attack on Israel began.

"On Oct. 1, information identified an upcoming attack on Israel by Iran with the sending of ballistic missiles. Consequently, and without waiting for instructions from the Iraqi authorities, Air France decided to suspend flights over the country's airspace by its aircraft as of 5 p.m. universal time (i.e. 7 p.m. Paris time)," indicates a press release from the company sent to AFP.

Air France specifies that on that day, its flight AF662, connecting Paris CDG to Dubai, "was flying over the south of Iraq when the Iranian attack began, at around 4:45 p.m. universal time. It left the country's airspace shortly before 5:00 p.m. Iraqi airspace was not officially closed by the local authorities until 5:56 p.m. universal time," it is specified.

The statement recalled that Air France aircraft "already avoided Israeli, Lebanese and Iranian airspace" and that "overflight of Iraqi airspace was limited to a specific corridor used by all airlines."

A spokesperson for the company told AFP that "an internal investigation has been opened into this event."

Ballistic missiles travel at a higher altitude than airliners. But according to the continuous news channel LCI, the pilots of flight AF662 "saw the missiles from the cockpit," information that Air France did not wish to comment on.

Questioned by LCI, Laurent Veque, a member of the board of the National Union of Airline Pilots, declared that "the facts are established and known, the plane ended up in this Iraqi corridor in the middle of the hostilities unleashed by Iran against Israel."

"Light must be shed ... The health, safety and working conditions committee (CSSCT) will certainly be notified today, we want to know what happened," he added.

Iran said it launched 200 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, following the September 27 death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli missile in the southern suburbs of Beirut, along with an Iranian general. Tehran said 90 percent hit their targets, while the Israeli military said many were intercepted.

This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.