Over 10 Indian carrier flights get bomb threats in 24 hours, routes diverted
Bomb threats disrupt Indian flights, leading to chaos and security checks. All threats deemed hoaxes after thorough investigation.
- Oct 19, 2024,
- Updated Oct 19, 2024, 1:37 PM IST
Over 10 flights operated by Indian carriers received bomb threats in the last 24 hours, prompting authorities to launch security checks and divert flights amid complete chaos.
Five flights each from IndiGo and Akasa received threats, while three Vistara aircraft and one Air India Express flight were also under target.
Early on October 19 morning, three international flights of Vistara Airlines received bomb threats which were revealed to be hoaxes after checks.
Meanwhile, a Vistara flight travelling from Delhi to London was diverted to Frankfurt. It resumed its journey from there after no threats were found.
As per officials, an Air India Express flight from Dubai to Jaipur, with 189 passengers on board, received a bomb threat via email. Akasa Air also reported that its flight QP 1366, scheduled to fly from Bengaluru to Mumbai on October 18, received a security alert shortly before departure.
The IndiGo flights include 6E 17 operating from Mumbai to Istanbul, 6E 11 operating from Delhi to Istanbul, and 6E 184 operating from Jodhpur to Delhi.
The Delhi-London Vistara flight landed safely at Frankfurt Airport at around 12.40 am (Indian time), following which mandatory checks were conducted. It departed from Frankfurt for London after about two hours, the airline said on Saturday.
Air India Express from Dubai landed in Jaipur at 1.20 am, and nothing suspicious was found after the checks.
In the past one week, at least two dozen flights have received similar threats and all of them turned out to be false alarms.
The investigating agencies have found some common lines and words used in these fake threats, like "bombs", "blood will spread everywhere", "explosive devices", "this is not a joke" and "you will all die" and "bomb rakhwa dia hai" (Hindi for bomb has been placed) among others.
Earlier, a 17-year-old boy from Chhattisgarh was detained by Mumbai Police in connection with threats to three flights originating from Mumbai on October 14.