More than 90 fake bomb threats have been made against flights operated by multiple Indian airlines this week, Indian media reported Sunday, sparking fear among passengers and global delays. All flights landed safely, but the spate of threats has resulted in planes being diverted to Canada and Germany, and fighter jets scrambled to escort aircraft in the skies above Britain and Singapore. India\u2019s government and civil aviation authorities have warned that \u201cvery strict action\u201d will be taken. New Delhi\u2019s civil aviation authorities have not said how many threats have been received in the past week, but The Times of India and broadcaster News18 reported more than 70 hoaxes targeting both domestic and international flights since October 13. At least 30 hoax threats were made on Saturday alone, and at least 20 more threats were made to different airlines on Sunday. India\u2019s IndiGo airline confirmed threats were made against six of its flights on Sunday. Two were on domestic routes, and four were international \u2014 linking Indian cities to Saudia Arabia\u2019s Jeddah and Dammam, as well as two separate flights to Istanbul in Turkey. \u201cThe safety and security of our passengers and crew is our highest priority,\u201d IndiGo said in a statement. \u201cWe are working closely with the relevant authorities and taking all necessary precautions.\u201d The global impact of delays and diversions has been heavy on airline schedules and costs. At least one person \u2014 a minor \u2014 has been arrested in India, but the threats have continued. \u201cAll others responsible for the disruptions will be identified and duly prosecuted,\u201d India\u2019s aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said after the arrest on Wednesday. A report in The Indian Express said that an anonymous account on X, formerly Twitter, was suspended after posting bomb threats to at least 40 flights on Friday and Saturday. This included both Indian and international airlines, including from the United States and New Zealand. \u201cThere are bombs placed onboard\u2026 No one will make out alive. Hurry up and evacuate the plane,\u201d read the identical messages from the suspended account, the newspaper reported. Among the recent flights impacted was an Air India plane heading from Mumbai to New York, with US security officials sweeping the aircraft after its safe landing on Saturday. Other flights that were impacted include an Air India plane from New Delhi to Chicago, which was forced to make an emergency landing in the far northern Canadian city of Iqaluit on Tuesday. Canada\u2019s airforce had to fly the passengers onward. The same day, Singapore scrambled fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane. On Thursday, British RAF fighter jets escorted an Air India Boeing 777-300 after a threat was made against the plane, which landed safely in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 90 fake bomb threats have been made against flights operated by multiple Indian airlines this week, Indian media reported Sunday, sparking fear among…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20459,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}