Unknown person booked for bomb hoax call on flight

Unknown person booked for bomb hoax call on Mumbai-Bengaluru flight, causing delay and chaos. Passengers deboarded, plane searched, found safe. Police tracing caller's identity.

MUMBAI: An unknown person has been booked by the Airport police for making a bomb hoax call on a Mumbai-Bengaluru flight on February 24.

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According to the FIR filed by the security personnel of a low-cost airline, their call centre in Malad received the call on Saturday evening around 6.35 pm. The unknown caller informed their staff that there was a bomb on the 6.40 pm flight leaving from Mumbai’s domestic airport.

“The message was relayed to the airline authorities and subsequently to the officials at the domestic airport at the soonest. By then the flight was ready for take-off with 67 passengers. The air traffic controller immediately asked the captain to delay the take-off,” said an official from the Airport police.

The passengers were kept in isolation for some time until the authorities could assess the risk by the standard operating protocol of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS). “When passengers learnt of the reason for the delay in their flight, there was a lot of chaos. The security and airline personnel worked hard to ensure that all were deboarded and a thorough search of the plane was conducted,” said the officer.

He added that all the luggage of the passengers that had been loaded was also unloaded and was scanned by the dogs from the bomb detection squad. No objectionable object was found either on the flight, on the person or in the luggage of any passenger.

“Once we were sure it was safe to do so, all the passengers were allowed to board the flight again. It was able to take off for Bengaluru only around 1.30 am on Sunday,” said the officer.

Based on the complaint by the airlines, Airport police booked the unknown accused under sections 505 (1) (b) (spreading a rumour with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquility), 506 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code.

The police are still tracing the call to uncover the caller’s identity.