Vistara Airlines’ Frankfurt-Mumbai flight, with 134 passengers and 13 crew on board, made an emergency landing in Mumbai at 7.45 am on Thursday after a bomb threat, reported PTI.
Another two aircraft – an Air India flight from Mumbai to London and an IndiGo flight operating from Istanbul to Mumbai – also received bomb threats during the day.
This took the total number of bomb threats received by Indian air carriers to 20 in four days.
Vistara’s Boeing 787 aircraft was isolated and subjected to a security check on arrival at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai. “We are fully cooperating with the security agencies to complete the mandatory security checks,” Vistara stated.
The Air India flight from Mumbai to London declared an emergency onboard after receiving a bomb threat an hour before landing, NDTV reported.
In the third incident on Thursday, IndiGo’s 6E 18 from Istanbul to Mumbai received a security-related alert, the airline said. “Upon landing, the aircraft was isolated, and all passengers were safely disembarked,” it added.
On Wednesday, an Akasa Air aircraft en route to Bengaluru from Delhi returned to the national capital after receiving a bomb threat.
Two SpiceJet aircraft and four IndiGo flights – Riyadh to Mumbai, Mumbai to Singapore, Chennai to Lucknow and Mumbai to Delhi – also received bomb threats on Wednesday. Another IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Delhi was redirected to Ahmedabad due to a similar threat.
A direct message was received on SpiceJet’s account on the social media platform X regarding a bomb threat related to two flights, an unidentified spokesperson of the airline told ANI.
On Tuesday, threats were issued to an Air India flight from New Delhi to Chicago, an Air India Express flight from Madurai to Singapore and an IndiGo flight from Saudi Arabia’s Dammam to Lucknow.
On Monday, similar threats were issued to an Air India flight from Mumbai to New York.
On the same day, two IndiGo flights operating on the routes connecting Mumbai to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Muscat, Oman also received threats.
The threats from Monday and Tuesday were declared hoaxes by the security agencies.
The Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday sought a report from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on the bomb threats.
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