A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing after a note reading ‘there is a bomb on the plane’ was found in the toilet.
The note, written on a napkin, was found while the flight from Mumbai, India, to Frankfurt, Germany, was above Turkish airspace.
Turkish transport officials said the plane, operated by the Indian airline Vistara, was forced to land at the Turkish airport Erzurum this afternoon.
The plane was grounded ‘due to security reasons’, the airport said on X, with 234 passengers and 13 crew members safely evacuated.
City governor Mustafa Çiftçi told reporters that a flight attendant found the note about five hours into the flight – who left the note is unclear.
Vistara flight UK27 was only three and a half hours away from Frankfurt when it squawked 7700, which indicates a general emergency, according to the tracking service FlightRadar24.
The aircraft initially planned to land the aircraft planned to land at an airport in Ordu, northern Turkey but was rerouted due to construction work.
‘They wanted to land in Trabzon, and since the air traffic there was heavy, they were diverted to Erzurum,’ Çiftçi said.
The flight crew raised the alarm at just before 3.40pm local time before landing at Erzurum at 4.38pm.
‘After the plane is searched and the luggage is checked, if everything is all clear, we will place the passengers on the plane with their luggage again,’ Çiftçi added.
‘We will send them from here and then the emergency situation will be over.’
No traces of a bomb have been found on the plane, Turkish transport minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said on X. Bomb disposal experts and search dogs are now rummaging through the plane’s cargo, cabin and cabin luggage.
Landings and take-offs at Erzurum Airport have been halted until 11pm.
‘We will continue to take the necessary precautions by informing the public,’ he added.
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