2 Chinese flights receive bomb threat calls, 1 held over hoax

Two Chinese flights, including one bound for Tibet, today received bomb threat calls, hours after a person was detained in connection with a hoax call that had forced a plane from Turkey to China's restive Xinjiang region to make an emergency landing in the country's northwest.

Air China's flight from Tibetan provincial capital Lhasa to Beijing via Chengdu and another from Nanchang to Beijing got threat calls from unidentified sources, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Nothing suspicious have been found on the planes so far, the report said. The news came as police detained a man named Wang who reportedly confessed to police that he made a fake terrorist threat that forced a China Southern Airlines plane travelling from Istanbul to Beijing via Urumqi, to make an emergency landing in Gansu province's Zhongchuan Airport last night.

Police said they are investigating Wang's motives of making up the threat. Significantly, the suspect was identified as Wang, the name synonymous with Han Chinese unlike the native Muslim Uygurs of the province who have been agitating against the settlements of the Hans in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Most of the suspects in previous such attempts was from Uygur community. The latest incidents came less than two months after bombing threats grounded two planes in China.

In late August, an Air China flight bound for New York returned to Beijing Capital International Airport after it received a threatening message. The plane headed for New York after no dangerous items were found on the plane.