Canadian police search Air India plane after scare

TORONTO, Sep 19 (Reuters) Canadian police destroyed a suspicious package today that was found on an Air India flight heading to England.

The airliner turned back to Toronto yesterday night after a passenger discovered the package in one of the plane's washrooms and alerted the crew.

About an hour into the flight, the pilot radioed a request to fly back to Toronto.

''Our explosives disposal unit became involved, retrieved the package, examined it remotely, and then determined that it needed to be detonated,'' said Pete Brandwood, spokesman for Peel Regional Police.

''The contents of the package are still under investigation.

Brandwood said the package ''was something untoward, or uncommon, to be found in the bathroom of an airplane'' but declined to describe it further. He said the bomb disposal squad were not sure what the object was, but destroyed it as a precautionary measure.

About 150 passengers spent the night at the infield terminal at Toronto's Pearson airport to keep them secluded while police investigated and searched the plane, airport spokesman Scott Armstrong said.

''The event is virtually stood down, whatever security concerns there were have been eliminated,'' he said.

The yesterday evening flight, which was headed to Birmingham, England, was canceled and passengers were being taken to area hotels today afternoon.

Last week, a Dubai-bound Air India flight was diverted to a military airbase due to an erroneous alert issued by Indian aviation authorities.

In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was destroyed in a bomb attack during a flight from Canada to India, killing 329 people in history's deadliest bombing of a passenger airline. A near simultaneous attack on a second Air India flight killed two Tokyo airport workers.

Reuters PR RS2245