Bomb Threats On 2 More Planes: 12 Flights Impacted In 3 Days

A Bengaluru-bound Akasa Air flight and a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight received bomb threats on Wednesday, which later turned out to be hoax calls. This is the 12th such incident in the past three days.

Earlier, a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight from Mumbai was diverted to Ahmedabad after it received a hoax bomb threat via social media. The flight carrying nearly 200 passengers and crew had taken off from Mumbai on Tuesday night. The threat was confirmed as a hoax on Wednesday.

Today, a Bengaluru-bound Akasa Air was forced to return to Delhi after it received a bomb threat. Flight QP1335, carrying 184 passengers, took off from Delhi and an emergency was declared at 1:15 pm. The plane then made an emergency landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital. Later, the threat too turned out to be a hoax.

On Tuesday, a Delhi-Chicago Air India flight, Jaipur-Bengaluru Air India Express, Dammam-Lucknow IndiGo flight, Darbhanga-Mumbai SpiceJet flight, Siliguri-Bengaluru Akasa Air flight, Alliance Air Amritsar-Dehradun-Delhi flight and Air India Express flight from Madurai to Singapore were the seven flights that got bomb threats.

On Monday, two IndiGo flights and an Air India flight got similar hoax bomb threats. These were Mumbai-New York Air India flight, Muscat-bound IndiGo flight, and another IndiGo flight heading to Jeddah.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has been working with cybersecurity agencies and police to trace the culprits behind the threats. Bomb threats to Indian airlines were discussed in a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on transport,  Aviation officials told MPs "critical leads" and a few initial suspects had been identified.