Bomb threats to Indian airlines continued on Friday, with two more flights — a Vistara flight from Delhi to London and an Air India Express flight from Dubai to Jaipur — receiving security threats in the last 24 hours. This brings the total number of affected flights to 37 in the past week.
“Vistara flight UK17 operating from Delhi to London on October 18, 2024 received a security threat on social media. In line with the protocol, all relevant authorities were immediately informed and as a precautionary measure, the pilots decided to divert the flight to Frankfurt,” an airline spokesperson told news agency PTI.
The flight landed safely, and security checks were underway. The aircraft will continue its journey to London after receiving clearance from security agencies, the spokesperson added.
The bomb threats have followed a similar pattern, originating from unverified accounts on the social media platform X. Despite all the threats being false, operations were disrupted, causing significant inconvenience for passengers and stress on aviation security.
“We know that 99.99 per cent of the threats will turn out to be fake. But no one wants to take a chance with the remaining 0.01 per cent cases as well,” a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said. “That is why despite strict pre-departure security checks at Indian airports, we take bomb threats very seriously, knowing fully well that most will turn out to be fake, ” official added.
Akasa Air also reported a bomb threat on Friday. Flight QP 1366, scheduled from Bengaluru to Mumbai, was delayed after a security alert was received. Passengers were deplaned as authorities carried out necessary procedures, the airline said in a post on X.
On Thursday, bomb threats targeted 14 flights, including six Air India Express flights, five Air India flights, two Vistara flights, and one IndiGo flight. All five Air India threats were traced to a single unverified account on X, @psychotichuman0.