IndiGo flight 6E97 diverts to Ahmedabad after a tissue marked bomb

IndiGo flight 6E97 from Lucknow to Dammam made an emergency landing at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad at about 5:45 p.m. on Thursday after a crew member found the word "bomb" written on a piece of paper, later described as tissue, inside the cabin.

Airport police inspector A.D. Chavda said the aircraft carried 107 passengers and six crew. All were taken off and held at Terminal 2. Some airport accounts put the total on board at 133. Local police, the Central Industrial Security Force, the Special Operations Group and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad searched the aircraft. Nothing suspicious was found, police said in the evening.

Passengers were asked for handwriting samples so that the note could be compared. The flight did not continue to Saudi Arabia on Thursday night while the search and the comparison were under way.

The second Ahmedabad paper threat in ten days

On 31 August an Air India Express service from Dammam to New Delhi diverted to the same airport after a crew member found a tissue that claimed a bomb was on board. That aircraft carried 32 passengers. Investigators in that case later named a crew member in the inquiry. Thursday's IndiGo note used the same medium and the same airport as the diversion point.

Hoax threats on Indian flights have been frequent enough in the past two years that airlines now treat a written word in a lavatory as a reason to land. The cost sits with the carrier, the airport and the passengers. A Dammam arrival slot is lost. A narrow-body spends a night on a remote stand. CISF and the bomb squad run a full search for a scrap of paper.

Police have not named a passenger or a crew member in the 6E97 case. Until handwriting results come in, the note is an unsigned sentence. The operational fact is already complete. An international flight between Uttar Pradesh and the Saudi Eastern Province ended in Gujarat because someone wrote one word on tissue and left it where a cabin crew member would see it.

Ahmedabad is a planned diversion point on that airway. It has fire, police and bomb cover and a runway that takes an A320. That is why two paper threats in ten days have landed at the same terminal. The pattern will hold until the people writing the notes are identified or until the cost of a hoax rises enough to stop the copycats. Thursday's search found no device. The passengers still lost Dammam.