Hoax Bomb Threat Forces Emergency Landing at Thiruvananthapuram Airport

A major emergency was declared at Thiruvananthapuram Airport on Thursday morning after a bomb threat was reported on an Air India flight arriving from Mumbai.

The aircraft, carrying 135 passengers, landed at the airport around 8 a.m. and was immediately directed to an isolation bay. By 8:44 a.m., all passengers had been safely evacuated. The bomb threat was initially reported by the captain at 7:30 a.m. as the plane approached the airport. 

Following the communication, a full emergency was declared at 7:36 a.m. Airport operations continued normally, and no injuries were reported. However, further details regarding the source of the threat remain unclear.

Flight AI657 from Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram received a security alert on August 22. Upon arrival, the aircraft was taken to a secure area for thorough inspections by security personnel. According to a representative from Air India, all passengers and crew members disembarked safely.

This incident follows a similar event on June 17, when a 13-year-old boy was detained for sending a bomb threat via email to Delhi Airport, claiming a bomb was on a flight to Dubai. The airport was placed on high alert, though the threat was later determined to be a hoax. The child admitted to sending the email "for fun" after hearing about another fake bomb threat made by an adolescent days earlier.

Hoax bomb threats have been increasingly targeting airports and hospitals. On June 18, bomb threats were sent via email to 41 airports across the country, including those in Varanasi, Jaipur, and Chennai, leading to extensive anti-sabotage checks that ultimately proved the threats to be false.

Similarly, around 60 hospitals in Mumbai received fake bomb threat emails earlier. These emails, sent through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to public mail IDs of the institutions, resulted in heightened security measures. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has proposed a five-year flying ban for individuals found guilty of making such threats, which disrupt flight schedules and necessitate thorough security checks for all passengers and aircraft.