MESSAGE BOARD
NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Plane takes off after 10-hour delay due to bomb hoax: PTI

The Air-India plane, which was searched following a hoax call on Tuesday about a bomb on it, took off for Bombay from the Indira Gandhi international airport in New Delhi on Wednesday morning after nearly 10 hours of delay.

The flight from New York to Bombay via London and New Delhi was forced to off-load all 291 people on board, following the call.

The bomb disposal squad of the Delhi police, assisted by other security agencies and sniffer dogs, searched the plane for several hours before declaring it fit for take-off at 06:00 hours IST.

The plane, which had landed at Delhi airport at 22:49 hours IST on Tuesday, finally took off for Bombay at 09:00 hours IST on Wednesday.

Union civil aviation secretary A H Jung, who was monitoring the developments at the airport, told PTI that a private television channel got an anonymous call at 20:40 hours IST that a bomb had been planted on the Air-India AI-112 flight.

''We immediately swung into action and took all precautionary measures for the plane to land safely,'' he said.

EARLIER REPORT
A-I plane lands safely following bomb scare

Tell us what you think of this report