Thu, Oct 07, 2004
Another Commercial Flight Escorted, Diverted After Bomb
Hoax
It started with an anonymous bomb threat phoned in to Lufthansa
shortly after flight LH686 left Frankfurt for Tel Aviv Tuesday.
Before it was over, the apparent hoax would force the aircraft to
divert and cause an international incident involving Germany,
Israel and Cyprus.
It was the fourth bomb hoax aimed at a major European airline in
two weeks. Even as the Lufthansa 747-400 carrying 331 passengers
and a crew of 16 was still in the air, airline officials decided it
was a hoax and suggested the flight continue on to Israel.
But the Israelis saw things a bit differently. The Israel
Defense Force sent a pair of F-16s to intercept the Lufthansa
flight. In the process, officials on Cyprus say the Israeli
warplanes accidentally intercepted a Swiss flight, violating
Cypriot air regulations. The officials in Nicosia said the Swiss
airliner had to quickly change altitude to avoid the fighters.
"It appears they then realized their mistake and moved on to the
Lufthansa plane," Cypriot Communications Minister Haris Thrassou
told the BBC.
The Lufthansa flight was diverted to
Larnaca, Cyprus, where it was searched for five hours before it was
allowed to continue on to Tel Aviv. Nothing suspicious was found on
board the aircraft.
This latest series of bomb hoaxes began September 26th, when an
Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to New York was diverted to
London and escorted by military aircraft after the airline received
a bomb threat. Since then, two other Olympic Airlines flights, a
Frankfurt, Germany-to-New York Singapore Airlines plane and a
Berlin-to-London British Airways jet have all been diverted because
of threats -- some with military escorts. In none of the cases were
any explosives found.
"We might just be looking at somebody who thinks it's a terrific
wheeze (joke) to ring up a television station or a newspaper and
say, 'There's a bomb on Flight SQ26,' and then sit back and watch
the TV coverage of it all," said Chris Yates, aviation security
editor for Jane's Transport in an interview with the London
Guarding newspaper. "Maybe that gives them some sort of ... warped
kick."
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