Ferry flight
Recently flew a ferry flight there. 30 minutes before crossing from Jakarta to Chennai FIR we get a call from Jakarta.
"Uh sir, Chennai requests your **garbled** number."
I had no idea what the hell he was talking about so I just gave him my registration and SELCAL hoping that would do the trick.
No response.
10 minutes before crossing into India.
"Sir, uhhhhh, Chennai needs your **garbled** number or you will be denied entry into Indian airspace."
He was literally just mumbling a string of letters and had no idea what he was asking for. Luckily I had just flown with an Indian Captain a couple of months before and he mentioned something about defense codes and how we never seemed to need them anymore.
We ACARS the sleeping dispatcher,
[NEED DEFENSE CODES TO ENTER ]
[INDIAN AIRSPACE IMMEDIATE ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
*SEND
We also told Jakarta to pick up the telephone and call our dispatch desk because nothing but a loud ring was going to wake the poor bastard.
As a last ditch option we slowed down and planned to turn onto heading 270 which would keep us in Jakarta's airspace for another 15 minutes.
5 minutes to go, we switched to Chennai and started the long process of establishing communications on HF. Finally got a hold of them and told them that we didn't have the codes and that our company was going to ACARS it to us. They mumbled on a bit then proceeded to ignore us. About 45 minutes later, company got back with the codes. Nobody asked us for them again, and we didn't get shot down.
India.