Ahmedabad: An IndiGo flight from Lucknow to Dammam in Saudi Arabia made an emergency landing at Ahmedabad airport on Thursday evening after a bomb threat was reported onboard, prompting security agencies to launch a search of the aircraft.
IndiGo flight 6E097 landed at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (SVPIA) in Ahmedabad at around 5:45 p.m. after a crew member found a piece of paper bearing the word “bomb” on the aircraft, sources said.
“All passengers and crew members were safely disembarked,” they added. According to information available with airport authorities, the aircraft had 133 people on board, including passengers and crew.
An earlier police account had put the number at 107 passengers and six crew members. Following the landing, the passengers and crew were taken off the aircraft and security protocols were activated.
The local police and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel began searching the aircraft, while the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) was also carrying out checks.
“No suspicious object had been found on board,” officials said. The security agencies are continuing their checks to establish the nature of the threat.
The incident comes days after another international flight was diverted to Ahmedabad following a similar bomb threat.
On August 31, an Air India Express flight from Dammam to New Delhi, carrying 32 passengers, made an emergency landing at Ahmedabad after a crew member found a tissue paper bearing a message claiming that there was a bomb on board. The threat was subsequently found to be a hoax.
In that case, a threat note found in the aircraft’s lavatory led investigators to conduct a handwriting comparison involving people who had been on board, with a crew member later coming under the scanner, according to reports.
The investigation into that incident is continuing.
The latest incident also comes amid a series of bomb-threat alerts in Gujarat in recent days, including threats sent to courts in Ahmedabad and Surat earlier this month.
Police and security agencies had conducted searches following the threats, which were later described by Gujarat Police as hoaxes.
(IANS)
