Four threat calls at Delhi, Bengaluru airports; three flights grounded

An Air India and a Jet Airways flight travelling from Delhi to Kathmandu was delayed today following a bomb threat call.

Already under a heightened alert, security agencies at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport went into a tizzy after bomb threat calls were received on Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesperson for Jet Airways said: “A guest, who travelled from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai by Jet Airways flight 9W 585, on Sunday opened the emergency exit after the aircraft was parked at the bay. Jet Airways accords highest priority to safety of its guests and all our crew members are trained to handle such situations”, the spokesperson told mid-day. Following searches, the call turned out to be a hoax one.

A senior police official said that an anonymous caller made two calls to the IGI police station claiming that a laptop each has been placed in Air India flight AI-215 and Jet Airways flight 9W 260 and both would explode, the moment aircrafts take-off.

At the same time, budget carrier AirAsia India’s flight to Goa from Bengaluru, which was to fly 141 passengers and 4 infants, was also delayed following a similar bomb scare on its incoming flight from Jaipur.

The two aircraft have been taken to the isolation bay, where security personnel from bomb disposal squad (BDS) are carrying out an extensive search of the baggage and check-in luggage of the passengers, the sources said.

Passengers on both flights have been evacuated, according to the channel.

“But nothing was found. Aircraft was then cleared and released for normal operations”.