Tamil Nadu: Tipsy man delays Dubai-bound flight with hoax bomb threat
Chennai, Aug 27: An inebriated man who wanted to prevent his family members from travelling out of the country on Saturday made a hoax bomb threat to a Dubai-bound private carrier, only to land in the police net.
The city resident wanted to prevent two of his family members from flying to Dubai and made the threat call to the city police control room, prompting the security agencies to launch a full-scale search inside the IndiGo flight 6E 65 which was originally scheduled to depart at 7.20 AM on Saturday, airport and police officials said.
Following the threat call, a thorough check was undertaken by the security agencies to ascertain if any explosive items were planted in the flight.
However, no such items were found on the aircraft, with officials and others heaving a sigh of relief.
The IndiGo airline responded to the incident stating that a bomb threat process was initiated and after a delay of about six hours the aircraft was operated from Chennai.
"Due to a specific bomb threat, IndiGo flight 6E 65 Chennai to Dubai was delayed. As per the protocol, the aircraft was taken to a remote bay and the bomb threat process was initiated," the airliner said.
"The flight was operated after a delay of about six hours from Chennai," it said.
The call was traced to a man in the city who wanted to stop his relatives from flying to Dubai and he was promptly picked up by the police.
Around 180 passengers and crew members of the flight were provided accommodation.
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2 Indian nationals part of crew of luxury cruise ship that reported hantavirus outbreak
London (PTI): At least two Indian nationals are part of the crew of the Dutch vessel MV Hondius which reported a hantavirus outbreak with five confirmed cases and three deaths so far, according to the BBC.
The luxury cruise ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, began its journey on April 1 from Argentina’s Ushuaia and is expected to arrive in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10.
About 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries were initially aboard the luxury cruise, but dozens disembarked on the island of St Helena on April 24, according to the report.
Of the 28 nationalities onboard, 38 are from the Philippines, 31 from the UK, 23 from the US, 16 from the Netherlands, 14 from Spain, nine from Germany, six from Canada, and two crew members from India, among others, the BBC reported.
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The World Health Organization said on Thursday that five of the eight suspected hantavirus cases had been confirmed.
A 69-year-old Dutch woman, confirmed to have the virus, has died; her Dutch husband and a German woman were also among the fatalities. Their cases are being investigated.
The UN health agency has said the outbreak is not the start of a pandemic.
Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at WHO, told a news briefing that the situation is not the same as six years ago with Covid-19 because hantavirus spreads through “close, intimate contact”.
Van Kerkhove said “this is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently”. She said authorities had asked “everyone to wear a mask” on board the MV Hondius.
Those in contact with or caring for suspected cases, she added, should “wear a higher level of personal protective equipment”.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents - but in the latest outbreak the transmission between people was documented for the first time, the WHO said.
Meanwhile, health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius.
Oceanwide Expedition said 29 passengers, of at least 12 different nationalities, had left the MV Hondius in St Helena, the British Overseas Territory.
It also said the body of one deceased person—now known to be a Dutch man - was taken off the vessel.
Seven of those who left the cruise liner were British nationals.
