Two detained over fake bomb in Air France toilet

Airports are powerless to stop passengers from smuggling on board the kind of fake bombs that sparked this weekend’s major security alert on an Air France flight, flight safety experts have warned.

This came even as French police on Monday detained a couple who were passengers on an Air France flight, a police source said.

The 473 stranded passengers and crew were evacuated from the aircraft by slides and accommodated at a hotel in Mombasa before being returned to France, he said.

Authorities later discovered a fake explosive, rigged with cardboard, sheets of paper and a household timer, and declared it a hoax.

“After analysis, it has been indicated that it was a false alarm”, said Air France CEO Frederic Gagey of the item that was found in the toilet cubicle on board the plane flying from Mauritius to the French capital.

Air France has been the target of three prior hoaxes, all in the United States, Gagey said.

The man had been detained when he arrived at the Charlest de Gaulle Airport this Monday as per an official from the prosecutor’s office in the Bobigny suburb of Paris. It does not name a particular perpetrator, but leaves it to investigators to determine who might eventually stand trial.

France is on high alert after the Paris attacks in November and has put in place extra security precautions. Six passengers have been questioned over the incident, including the person who informed the crew about the device.

The passengers arrived in Paris safely this Monday and were overwhelmed with relief.

Passenger Marine Gorlier said: “We thought we were going to die”.

The arrest is part of an investigation prompted by an Air France lawsuit for “reckless endangerment” while the airline was bringing the flight from Mauritius to the French capital.

All 459 passengers and 14 crew members travelling from Mauritius to Paris were safely evacuated when a device was found in a toilet. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for that and the October 31 crash of a Russian passenger in the Sinai desert that killed all 224 people aboard.