An Air France flight traveling from Mauritius to Paris made an emergency landing on Sunday in Kenya after a bomb, which was found to be fake, was discovered in the plane – the artifact was made of paper and a timer.
Advertisement
The pilots of the Boeing 777 requested to land at Moi International Airport in Mombasa after the item was found in a toilet, according to BBC report.
The object was analyzed and found to contain no explosives, the airline said.
He said the “deduction” was that the item had been placed in a toilet cupboard by one of the passengers and said the bomb scare appeared to be the result of a “bad joke”. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for that and the October 31 crash of a Russian passenger in the Sinai desert that killed all 224 people aboard.
Gagey said there had been three bomb scares on Air France planes in the United States in the past 15 days.
The Boeing 777 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris from Mauritius when its pilots requested an emergency landing at early Sunday in the Kenyan city of Mombasa.
The plane was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members on board and had left Mauritius at 21:00, Owino said. “When the plane stopped, he told us to run away to take the slide, to run away from the plane”, Stephen told reporters. “We did not know what was happening”, said Lucchini.
Navy and police bomb experts were called in to determine if there were any explosives aboard the plane.
Gagey said the crew acted appropriately by deciding to divert the flight, which left Mauritius bound for Paris. Air France-KLM said on December 8 that the attacks hurt its seat occupancy rate, with an impact on revenue for November estimated at about 50 million euros ($54 million).
Earlier, the Kenya Airports Authority said it was able to “foil a bombing attempt on Air France” before it edited its statement.
Six passengers are being questioned over the incident, said a Kenyan police official, who is part of the investigation and who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. “A few passengers are being interrogated”, he said.
Advertisement
“The plane landed there safely at 12:37 a.m. local time”, Boinnet said in a statement.
