Bomb threat notes in toilets delay NE flights

Kolkata: A hand note with the ominous message ‘Bomb in flight', scribbled on a tissue paper in the lavatory of a morning flight to Shillong. Another chilling threat, this one written in red lipstick in the toilet of a flight arriving from Dibrugarh in the evening. Two threats in two northeastern flights almost 10 hours apart kept the CISF and the bomb squad at Kolkata airport on their toes on Saturday. In the first instance in which the note was found in the toilet of an ATR 72 aircraft, the Shillong-bound flight was delayed by over four hours.
After the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee at the airport categorised the message as a specific threat, the emergency contingency plan was rolled out, passengers who were already seated had to be evacuated, the aircraft moved to an isolation bay and luggage offloaded before the bomb squad carried out a thorough check.There were 61 passengers, including an infant, and four crew on the IndiGo flight 6E 7304.An airport official said a flight crew spotted the message in the lavatory around 9.25 am after flight had been cleared for departure and it was pushed back to taxi to the runway for take-off."The flight was asked to hold. The Bomb Threat Assessment Committee that was immediately convened declared the threat as ‘specific', and accordingly the bomb threat contingency plan was rolled out," an official said.In the evening, another IndiGo flight 6E 4894 arriving in Kolkata from Dibrugarh had to be moved to an isolation bay again after it landed at 7.37 pm. Prior to its arrival, the captain had radioed in and informed the ATC that a bomb threat had found in the aircraft."A suspicious message indicating a bomb threat and reportedly written with lipstick was found inside the aircraft toilet. As per established protocol, passengers were again deboarded before checks began," an airport official said.Security officials said a passenger on the flight is likely to have written the message. Though a CCTV camera is present in the cabin that records movement of passengers, there is none in toilets for privacy, and hence, difficult to determine who the person may have been.Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Valentine's day wishes, messages and quotes !