Two Paris-bound Air France airliners diverted after unspecified threats were made over the phone. Ingley, a freelance journalist and former Arizona Republic editorial writer, was flying to Paris to visit her daughter’s family, a trip she makes three or four times a year.
Advertisement
David Rocca told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he and fellow passengers were told that security officials would come on the plane and that they should stay seated. No one had any idea what the problem was.
Air France Flight 55 took off from Dulles worldwide airport outside Washington. Los Angeles resident Ara Adjamian said the Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogated passengers one-by-one.
“If there’s a threat that something may happen to the plane, I think I’d rather come to Halifax for the night than risk my plane exploding over the Atlantic”. He says since 9/11, the heightened security at the airport prepares staff for every possible situation.
A man on board that flight told CNN that passengers were informed that they were being diverted about two and a half hours into the flight “due to operational issues”.
He said he looked at the flight monitor at his set and “we had made a pretty sharp right turn – we had been nearly near Canada – toward Salt Lake City”.
APPHOTO HAL108: Passengers from Air France Flight 55 head through the terminal at Halifax Stanfield worldwide Airport on Wednesday, November 18, 2015.
Social media comments alluded to an emergency landing of the jet that left Los Angeles, saying it had touched down in Utah, with many police cars on the tarmac.
Trevor Moran was headed to Paris from Los Angeles to shoot a music video on Flight 65.
FBI Special Agent Todd Palmer of the bureau’s Salt Lake City field office said late tonight no evidence had been found that led credibility to the threat against Flight 65. “From there we put our K9’s onto the aircraft as quickly as possible to go through the passenger compartment”.
He said he was among half a dozen passengers who also were taken off the flight because they had connecting flights in Chicago that they would miss.
Advertisement
It has not been confirmed if both the “bomb threats” are in any way related to the Paris attacks, but nevertheless, heavy security measures are being maintained in Europe and the US.
