Bangkok (TDI): An Air India flight from Phuket in Thailand to New Delhi, India, received an onboard bomb threat on Friday and made an emergency landing on the island, according to airport authorities.
The flight took off from Phuket airport bound for New Delhi at 9:30am on Friday, but made a wide loop over the Andaman Sea and landed back on the southern Thai island.
“All passengers were safely evacuated in accordance with emergency protocols,” said an official from Airports of Thailand (AOT). No further details were released regarding the nature of the threat.
This episode follows closely on the heels of a tragic Air India crash in Ahmedabad a day earlier, which left over 265 people dead.
That flight, bound for London, crashed shortly after takeoff, reportedly issuing a distress call moments before it went down in a densely populated neighborhood.
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Investigators said the aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, barely cleared 100 meters before it lost control. A black box was recovered from the crash site on Friday. Authorities are now considering grounding the airline’s 787 fleet pending further investigation.
Amazingly, one passenger survived the fiery crash. Eyewitnesses described scenes of devastation as parts of the plane were lodged in the upper floors of a residential building used to house hospital staff.
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The two incidents have reignited concerns over airline safety. Indian airports and carriers have been the target of hundreds of hoax bomb threats over the past year, nearly 1,000 in just ten months, a tenfold increase from 2022 figures.
Authorities are treating the latest bomb scare with utmost seriousness, given the backdrop of Thursday’s catastrophic crash. Security sweeps and passenger screening have now been heightened at several airports across the region.
