Thirty-two bomb threats in four days target twelve airlines
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on MyJoyOnline
Thirty-two bomb threats targeted a dozen airlines in four days, forcing planes to be escorted by fighter jets, inspected in flight and diverted to other airports, sometimes abroad. All turned out to be false, but each threat imposes the same security procedure, according to former pilot and expert Marco Chan, cited by MyJoyOnline.
Thirty-two bomb threats targeted twelve airlines in four days, MyJoyOnline reports. Some arrived by phone, others by email; all turned out to be hoaxes, but each triggered emergency measures.
Some aircraft were escorted by military planes, others were inspected in flight by crews, several were diverted to different airports, sometimes in another country. An Aer Lingus flight had to land at an airbase 1,000 kilometres from its destination for lack of fuel. "They have a triage system, but follow the same protocols for each until they are absolutely sure there is no threat," explained Marco Chan, a former commercial airline pilot and aviation specialist at Kingston University, cited by the Ghanaian media outlet. This can involve an in-flight inspection and, above all, a search on landing.
According to Paul Mason, an aviation security expert, the financial cost falls on the airlines, with no compensation for passengers, since the incidents are not their doing. He recalls that more than a hundred aircraft are diverted every day around the world for technical, medical or weather reasons. For now, the disruption remains limited to the few thousand passengers directly concerned.
These alerts extend a series that had already affected European flights on 3 November, then twelve planes targeted by bomb threats in Europe on 5 November.
