Swiss flight grounded in India due to bomb scare
A Swiss airlines flight heading to Zurich from the Indian capital New Delhi was grounded following a bomb scare in the early hours of Saturday. The phone call alerting the airport authorities was found to be a hoax.
Reports in the Indian media state that a phone call was made at 1:30 am local time to the Delhi airport’s call centre regarding the presence of explosives on three planes leaving Delhi. The three flights concerned were Jet Airways and Cathay Pacific planes heading to Hong Kong, as well as the Swiss airlines plane LX147 heading to Zurich.
According to CNN-IBN News, the plane was getting ready to take off and was forced to abort the flight after receiving information about a potential bomb on board.
#BREAKINGExternal link | At Delhi, Swissair flight was taxiing on the runway when the take off was aborted, after receiving bomb threat
— CNN-IBN News (@ibnlive) September 5, 2015External linkAll three planes had to return to an isolation bay for a search of the aircrafts, passengers and luggage. The state of emergency was called off at 2.40 am and all three planes were cleared for take-off.
Three other flights – including a plane belonging to Swiss airline’s parent company Lufthansa – scheduled to leave the Bengaluru airport in southern India were also grounded due to a hoax bomb scare.
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