UK-bound plane from Pakistan forced to land after bomb threat

Plane headed to Manchester carrying 347 passengers makes emergency landing in Turkey after email bomb warning A UK-bound plane has been forced to land in Turkey after a Pakistani airline received bomb threats by email. The plane was travelling to Manchester airport on Wednesday afternoon when officials in Islamabad received the terror warning, a Pakistani International Airlines chief said. All 347 passengers were safe as bomb disposal teams carried out searches on the grounded PK709 jet in Istanbul, he added. A total of 323 economy passengers, 24 first class passengers and 16 crew were ushered off the plane as sniffer dogs carried out searches at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, Captain Tasneem Mozaffar, head of global operations for the airline, said. A plane due to land in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has also been forced to land while security officials carried out checks, he said. “When you have 500 people in the air you have to take the safest option,” he said. “We received information in a written email of a bomb threat on the two flights. “We asked the UK-bound flight to turn left and land in Turkey as that was the nearest available place to safely land.” Manchester airport confirmed it had been told of the incident regarding the flight, which had taken off from Lahore. A spokesman said: “I can confirm that flight PK709 travelling to Manchester from Lahore, which was due to land at 4.10pm, has been diverted to Istanbul. “We have yet to receive detailed information as to why the plane landed in Turkey and we are awaiting updates as to when the plane will take off again for Manchester.” The scare came amid a heightened state of alert for airlines in the build-up to memorials to mark 10 years since the September 11 terror attacks. Global terrorism UK security and terrorism Pakistan Air transport Turkey guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.