NEW DELHI: Turkish Airlines Flight TKO65, en route from Bangkok to Istanbul, was forced to make an emergency landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here following a bomb scare on Tuesday.However, no explosive was found in the search. The aircraft was allowed to resume its journey after over four hours of search by security agencies.
The flight was in Indian airspace when Airbus 330 pilot saw a message on a washroom mirror about the presence of bomb in the cargo hold.
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials, who secured the plane after it landed, said the aircraft sent a distress signal to Nagpur air traffic controller, who advised emergency landing at the IGIA.
“The flight landed in Delhi at around 1:36 pm and all 134 passengers and 13 crew members were evacuated safely before a team of CISF and bomb squad launched the security checks. We had alerted NSG and Ministry of Home Affairs officials about the incident,” officials said, adding that the lipstick stub used for scribbling the threat message was recovered during the security check.
Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said nothing was found during the security checks. He said the luggage of the passengers and crew members were offloaded and a team conducted the checks as per the standard operating procedure.
MoS Civil Aviation, Mahesh Sharma said the officials also interrogated the passengers before declaring the incident as a hoax.