125 passengers and six crew members of a Jet Airways flight were stranded for almost three hours at Ahmedabad airport following a bomb scare on Wednesday morning.
The airport authority had to tow the aircraft to the isolation bay due to a bomb scare. The flight, scheduled to fly from Ahmedabad to Mumbai was vacated of all the passengers who had been aboard for over 45 minutes and extensive search of the passengers, their baggage, cargo and aircraft was carried out by the security agencies.
According to the police the decision to tow the aircraft to the isolation bay was taken after the cleaning staff in the flight found a chit mentioning a word ‘bomb’ when plane was being made ready to fly back to Mumbai. Immediately the staff member informed about the chit to the airport security in-charge. Subsequently CISF personnel also joined in the search operation.
“As per the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) the passengers in the aircraft were deplaned immediately and it was taken to an isolation bay for checking. However, we found nothing incriminating and the aircraft was cleared for the take-off,” said a source in airport security staff, adding that due to bomb hoax the flight delayed by three hours.
The police also detained three persons but release two immediately. The third person named Subramaniam, a chartered accountant working with world’s leading consulting firm, was later picked up from a local hotel near airport as he was found to have been seated on the seat where the chit was found. He was questioned at the local police station nearby. Meanwhile, the letter has been sent to Forensic Science laboratory in Gandhinagar.