1 held for making bomb threat calls
Print Edition
A SUSPECT is in custody after making bomb threat calls to an airport in central China that forced two domestic flights to make emergency landings and delayed the departures of another two yesterday.
The suspect, surnamed Yu, was caught in Nanchang City in east Jiangxi Province.
Police did not reveal any details about Yu yesterday.
The airport police said he made several bomb threat calls to the Changsha Airport in Hunan Province around noon.
Outbound flights of Capital Airlines, China Southern, Xiamen Airlines and Sichuan Airlines were all affected.
Capital Airlines’ flight JD5662, which was en route to Hangzhou, was immediately diverted to Nanchang airport around 1pm, half an hour after it took off.
No bombs were found after a thorough search of the aircraft.
The 136 passengers aboard the plane went through another round of security checks before taking off again at around 5pm.
“It was a tough experience. I just wanted to get home as soon as possible,” said a passenger surnamed Zhang, a native of Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province.
China Southern’s flight CZ3743 to Shenzhen was diverted to Wuhan about 3pm.
Xiamen Airlines’ MF8258 to Hangzhou and Sichuan Airlines’ 3U8998 to Chengdu were told to abort takeoffs. The flights departed at around 3pm after getting the security clearance.
It was the second such bomb threats made to the Changsha airport within a week.
On Sunday, the airport police received a call saying a man had placed a bomb on a flight to take off at 10pm. Eight flights were affected, stranding hundreds of passengers. The call turned out to be a hoax.
Police traced the caller to Dongguan City in Guangdong Province. He admitted making the hoax calls.
“I knew I would be caught when I made the first call,” the 26-year-old suspect surnamed Tan told the police. Tan said he had made the calls to attract the attentions of his family members with whom he had a quarrel, police said.
Hoax calls have become more frequent this year with more than 10 such calls affecting domestic carriers.
Under Chinese law, callers who disrupt flights, can face a prison term of five years or more. In previous incidents, callers have made the threatening calls to protest against long delays or poor services.
Others tried to disrupt flights for personal reasons.
China has stipulated that threats of explosion that can seriously threaten public security will be severely punished in a court of law.
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