A Chennai-Mumbai IndiGo flight with 172 people on board landed in “full emergency” conditions after it received a bomb threat on Saturday.
Flight 6E5314 departed Chennai at 6.50am and was en route when the bomb threat was received. The crew informed the pilot, who immediately informed Mumbai Air Traffic Control and requested an emergency landing. Airport fire trucks and ambulances were ready as the plane landed safely at around 8.45am. The passengers deplaned using the stepladder.
This is the second such incident involving an IndiGo flight in the past week. On May 28, an IndiGo Varanasi flight from Delhi had received an alleged bomb threat.
“Full emergency was declared for IndiGo flight 6E5314, operating on Chennai-Mumbai route on Saturday after the pilot informed the Mumbai ATC of an alleged bomb threat to the aircraft,” a source said.
Confirming the incident, IndiGo said in a statement, “Upon landing in Mumbai, the crew followed protocol and the aircraft was taken to an isolation bay as per security agency guidelines.”
The airport police registered a case against an unidentified individual under Sections 506 (2) (a person threatens to cause death), 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) and 505 (1) (B) (publishes or circulates any statement or report containing a rumour) of the Indian Penal Code.
“Along with airport security, we inspected the aircraft for around three hours but did not find any kind of bomb substances,” a police official said.
“The case was registered, and the investigation has just started. A letter found in a lavatory of the aircraft mentioned there was a bomb; the letter was in English and contained only a single line,” he said.
