Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: A Canadian Air Force aircraft is transporting 191 stranded passengers of an Air India flight from Iqaluit to Chicago today, a day after their flight was diverted due to a bomb threat. The Air India Boeing 777-300 ER, en route from Delhi to Chicago, was grounded at Iqaluit airport in Canada following the bomb threat on Tuesday. The flight carried 211 people, including 20 crew members.
The Canadian aircraft departed from Iqaluit at 3.54 am UTC (9.30 am IST) and is expected to land in Chicago at around 7.48 am UTC (1.15 pm IST).
In the last 48 hours, at least 10 Indian flights have been hit by hoax bomb threats, leading to heightened concerns. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) is investigating the matter, as the fake bomb threats were reportedly made from an unverified X (formerly Twitter) handle. A Parliamentary Standing Committee, along with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, is set to meet at 11 am today to discuss the issue.
Apart from the Air India Delhi-Chicago flight, other flights receiving bomb threats include the Dammam-Lucknow IndiGo flight, Ayodhya-Bengaluru Air India Express, SpiceJet’s Darbhanga-Mumbai flight, Akasa Air’s Bagdogra-Bengaluru flight, an Alliance Air flight from Amritsar to Dehradun to Delhi, and an Air India Express flight from Madurai to Singapore.
On Monday, hoax threats were received for two IndiGo flights and one Air India flight. These included Air India flight AI119 from Mumbai to New York’s JFK Airport, IndiGo flight 6E1275 to Muscat, and IndiGo flight 6E56 heading to Jeddah.
