NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI: Hoax threat messages continue to wreak havoc on flights of Indian carriers, with at least 13 aircraft affected on Thursday.
While Air India got a threat for five flights – Mumbai-London (AI 129), Delhi-New York JFK (AI 119), Chennai-Singapore, and two domestic flights – on Thursday, IndiGo and Vistara received threats for two flights each. AI Express is also learnt to have got similar messages for four flights.The number of flights that have received such threats is now close to 40 since the start of this week.
“AI flights to New York and Singapore landed uneventfully. The flight to London was asked to hold for a while, and in that time the airline informed the UK authorities about a non-specific threat. Finally it was allowed to land at Heathrow,” said people in the know.
Meanwhile, the Union aviation ministry is working on a deterrent – new rules to deal with and punish hoax callers severely. It is also looking at global best practices. “The law department is being consulted for the legal framework of the proposed new rules. Legal opinion is being sought. We hope to put in place new regulations with harsher penalties, including putting such callers on no-fly lists for a long time,” said sources. The ministry is also consulting with the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Union aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said: “Action is being taken on this. We can’t comment on any kind of conspiracy, but from whatever little bit we know these calls are coming from some minors and pranksters. These are all minor and isolated incidents. There is no kind of conspiracy that we can comment on. From our side, we are going to see what best we can do. We are talking to the airlines, security agencies, within the ministry also. Consultations are going on.”
An Air India official said: “Five AI flights received a security threat on social media Thursday. These have been duly reported to the regulatory bodies and all laid-down procedures were strictly followed as per guidance of the regulatory bodies. All the five flights have made a safe landing.”
An X user using the handle @psychotichuman had tagged Air India and the DGCA in a tweet. “I planted explosive devices onboard of 5 of your planes (sic)… The explosive devices will soon go off. Down the plane as quick as possible…” the message had said while listing five Air India flights.
Both the Vistara flights that received hoax threats were international – Frankfurt-Mumbai (UK 28) and Paris-Delhi (UK 22). Both landed at their destinations.
The IndiGo flights for which threats were received were Lucknow-Pune (6E 11*) and Istanbul-Mumbai (6E 18). They also landed at their destinations. In all these cases, planes were parked at a remote bay for thorough checking.
An Air India aircraft diverted to Canada after receiving a threat while flying from Delhi to Chicago earlier this week finally left for Chicago on Thursday.
Since Sunday there have been dozens of hoax messages, leading to multiple diversions, including at airports abroad, by AI and indiGo.
On Wednesday, seven flights of IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Akasa had received similar hoax messages about bombs on board, while on Monday and Tuesday about a dozen flights operated by Indian carriers had received hoax messages that led to flight diversions and delays.
Airlines are now urging govt to tackle this menace at the earliest as the same is putting a huge financial burden on them. The spate of hoax calls is leading to scares abroad too. Singapore, for instance, scrambled jets on at least two occasions when an inbound flight of an Indian carrier received threats before landing there.