An Air India jetliner flying from Phuket, Thailand, to Delhi had to make an emergency landing on Friday after a bomb threat was found in the plane, said airport officials to Reuters. Flight AI 379, which had taken off from Phuket International Airport at 9:30 AM local time, was en route over the Andaman Sea when the crew started emergency procedures, reversed the aircraft, and landed safely back in Phuket.
This scary ordeal started after one of the passengers aboard discovered a note threatening a bomb. The emergency response was activated as soon as the discovery was made. On landing, all 156 passengers were evacuated safely out of the plane according to the normal security checks. Thai officials immediately started a comprehensive search of the aircraft.
According to the first reports, explosives or any suspicious objects were not identified in the preliminary investigation. Nevertheless, Thai airport authorities arrested and started interrogating the passenger who had found the threatening note in his plane ticket in order to establish the validity and the source of the threatening message.
Airports of Thailand (AOT) assured that the scenario was managed according to their emergency response plans. Though the threat proved to be a false alarm, it caused a high-security alert, more so because it had occurred a day after a fatal Air India crash in Ahmedabad that had killed more than 240 people.
Air India is yet to make an official statement regarding the incident. The police are still carrying on with their investigation into the origin of the bomb threat, as the tension is growing over the fact that such cases are increasing in number where Indian airlines are concerned.
Indian aviation authorities experienced a wave of hoax bomb threats in 2024, with almost 1,000 bogus alerts in the first ten months of the year, almost ten times the number reported in 2023. The new incident is another pressure mounting on authorities to increase security and suppress hoax threats.
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