Air India flight from Phuket to New Delhi receives bomb threat, makes emergency landing

All 156 passengers on flight AI 379 had been escorted from the plane, in line with emergency plans, an Airports of Thailand official said.

Bangkok: An Air India flight from Phuket bound for New Delhi received an onboard bomb threat on Friday and made an emergency landing back on the Thai island, airport authorities said.

All 156 passengers on flight AI 379 were escorted safely from the plane. No suspicious devices were found and there was no disruption to airport operations, authorities said.

The incident occurred after a message with a bomb threat was found in one of the plane's lavatories after takeoff, Phuket Airport general manager Monchai Tanode told a press conference,

"Police took suspects for questioning but could not clearly say who wrote the note," he said.

Air India official Debasish Choudhury said there were initially three suspects and all had been cleared. India's airlines and its airports were inundated with hoax bomb threats last year, with close to 1,000 hoax calls and messages received in the first 10 months, nearly 10 times that of 2023. The incident follows the crash of an Air India flight in Ahmedabad on Thursday shortly after takeoff, in which more than 240 people were killed.