'Bomb' note on tissue paper found in Air India plane toilet (Ld)

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 (IANS) The tension that surfaced in the airport here on Thursday morning ended after a thorough search on the Mumbai-Thiruvananthapuram Air India flight found nothing dangerous, except a note written on a tissue paper in a toilet of the plane, which said 'bomb'.

Earlier, an Air India flight from Mumbai made an emergency landing following a bomb threat. The incident took place around 7.30 a.m. when the pilot of the Air India flight informed the airport authorities about the threat. As soon as the message of the threat was received, the airport went into full alert mode. The bomb squad and all other emergency services were quickly positioned.

After the plane made a touchdown around 8 a.m., it was moved to an isolated area of the airport and all the 136 passengers, including the crew on board, were evacuated safely. Bomb experts entered the plane and carried out a thorough check.

Initially, the authorities were perplexed about how the bomb threat was known to the pilot.

With the Kerala Police taking over the probe, it surfaced that a handwritten note on a tissue paper was recovered from the washroom of the aircraft when the flight was on its journey to here.

On the note was written about the presence of a bomb and that was how the pilot came to know about it, said officials.

Further investigation was on to find out who had written the note, and if there was any motive. Further details were awaited as the probe was ongoing.

The authorities said that the airport was functioning normally.

The entire baggage and the cargo on the Air India aircraft were screened. The passengers have not come out to the arrival lounge of the airport.

The police probe team after getting the list of passengers, spoke to them and the crew also, as the first step of their investigation as the note was recovered from the plane toilet.

The preliminary impression of the police is that chances are high that the note could have been put during the course of the flight.

--IANS

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