Turkish Airlines flight diverted to Delhi after ‘bomb threat’

NEW DELHI: A Turkish Airlines flight, with 148 people on board, has made an emergency landing at the Indira Gandhi worldwide Airport in Delhi.

A plane of Turkish Airlines flying on Istanbul-London route, made an emergency landing at the airport in Belgrade, Serbia, Anadolu agency reported July 7.

Soon after its landing, the plane was towed away to an isolated area in the airport where passengers and crew were evacuated.

The aircraft was checked for explosives by CISF and Bomb Disposal Squads. “The crew informed the pilot who got in touch with the Nagpur Air Traffic Controller who advised that the aircraft land in Delhi”, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey had said. It was later found to be hoax, as no explosives were found in the flight which took off after around nine hours. All the passengers deboarded and the cargo was off-loaded in the presence of bomb-disposal squads.

The state-run carrier, Europe’s fourth-largest airline, has faced a series of bomb threats, which have all proven to be false, since April. The searches, however, yielded the lipstick apparently used to write the message. “All the passengers have been offloaded”.

Gence further said necessary safety checks were taking place.

The flight will resume its journey to Istanbul if is given the all-clear, the airline spokeswoman said.

Teams from the elite National Security Guard (NSG) as well as officials from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other agencies rushed to the airport to handle the situation.

The IGI Airport has taken the flight to the isolation bay and NSG and CISF have cordoned off the plane.