Seven flights receive bomb threats prompting two to make emergency landing, security beefed up

Following hoax bomb threat calls to seven Indian flights on Oct 16, forcing two of them to make emergency landings.

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

Four aircraft were targeted and threats were issued by an X handle. The threats were sent to two Air India Express flights, a SpiceJet aircraft, an Akasa flight, an Air India aircraft, and an Alliance Air aircraft.

In addition, an emergency landing was performed in Jaipur by an Indigo flight from Saudi Arabia due to a bomb threat.

Once an X handle was used to tag airline and police handles in bomb threats, security services conducted precautionary inspections. Later on, the threats turned out to be false.

While the Air India Express aircraft went through security at the airport in Ayodhya, the Air India flight from Delhi to Chicago was rerouted to Canada for inspections.

After taking all necessary precautions, the flights operated by SpiceJet and Akasa Air successfully touched down.

On Oct 14, there was a similar bomb threat that included three aircraft from Mumbai that were international. Following anti-terrorist security drills by security, intelligence, airlines, and airport operators on Oct 14, all of the texts were deemed to be fake.

To identify the perpetrators of the threats, law enforcement and cybersecurity organizations have been collaborating with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) wrote to cyber security authorities shortly after the bomb threats were reported, and the X handle that was issuing the threats was suspended.

“In response, security protocols were promptly activated as directed by the government-appointed Bomb Threat Assessment Committee. The flight landed safely, and the aircraft will be released for operations following all mandated security procedures," the Air India spokesperson said.