An Air India flight from Thailand’s Phuket island to New Delhi made an emergency landing Friday shortly after takeoff because of an on-board bomb threat, the Thai airports authority said.
The incident comes a day after a London-bound Air India passenger jet crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, killing at least 265 people on board and on the ground.
Airports of Thailand said on its Facebook page for Phuket that the pilot of the Airbus A320 radioed air traffic control that a bomb-threat message had been found on board.
“We received a report of a bomb threat written inside the aircraft’s bathroom, so the pilot informed the control tower and decided to divert the flight to Phuket International Airport after circling to burn off fuel,” Monchai Tanode, director of Phuket International Airport told a press conference.
“Police have brought in several suspects, but have not yet been able to identify who wrote the message,” Monchai added.
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed the Phuket flight making a U-turn over the Andaman Sea soon after takeoff, then circling multiple times off the island’s coast before landing.
The flight finally took off at 4:28 pm (0928 GMT), the website showed, more than seven hours after its scheduled departure.
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