Ahmedabad-Delhi Vistara flight delayed after hoax bomb call

Ahmedabad, July 9: A Vistara flight to Delhi from the Ahmedabad airport was delayed by around four hours today following a bomb threat which turned out to be a hoax, a senior aviation official said.

"An unidentified person had called Vistara's call centre in Gurgaon in the morning today and claimed that the explosives have been planted on the Ahmedabad flight," Manoj Gangal, Director of the Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International (SVPI) Airport, said.

The call centre then informed the local Vistara office here about the threat call, Gangal said.

"On receiving information, a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) was convened immediately at the SVPI Airport. The committee viewed the call as 'non specific' but advised for a complete security drill," said Gangal in a statement.

As directed by the BTAC, the authorities checked the UK 976 Ahmedabad-Delhi flight thoroughly at the airport before giving it the green signal to fly as nothing suspicious was found, said Gangal.

"After thorough checks, flight number UK 976 was cleared for operation at 2:15 pm today," said Gangal.

In a series of tweets following the incident, Vistara had informed passengers that due to "mandatory security checks" its Ahmedabad-Delhi flight had been delayed.

The Ahmedabad-Delhi flight, originally scheduled to depart at 10:55am, took off at 3:27pm today.

PTI

For more Ahmedabad stories click here