Bomb hoax virus grounds 25 flights of Indian airlines; 100 in a week

NEW DELHI: More than 25 flights of Indian airlines received bomb threats on Sunday, causing hardships to hundreds of passengers and forcing authorities to move scores of planes to isolation bays at airports concerned for detailed checks.

The developments came a day after more than 30 flights of various Indian carriers received bomb threats. This week, nearly 100 flights received threats sending security agencies into a tizzy. The threats later turned out to be hoaxes.

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On Sunday, a handle on social media platform X that had issued bomb threats to some flights was blocked.

Six flights each of IndiGo, Vistara, Air India and Akasa Air, and at least one flight of Air India Express and SpiceJet received the threats on Sunday, according to sources.

At Chennai airport, the officials were on high alert after multiple Spicejet flights got hoax bomb threats. The international terminal was thrown into chaos after a bomb threat email was sent to the SpiceJet regional manager's office on Sunday afternoon, claiming that bombs had been planted on five SpiceJet flights that were scheduled to fly out from Chennai to Andaman, Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, and Pune.

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However, the airline operates only one flight from Chennai to Andaman, and authorities immediately grounded the flight scheduled to depart at 3 pm and conducted a thorough search of the aircraft.

Bomb disposal experts and sniffer dogs scoured the aircraft, but as no explosives were found, authorities declared the threat to be a hoax.

(With inputs from PTI)