Kochi-Bengaluru flight gets 'hoax' bomb threat

A bomb threat assessment (BTAC) was done at Cochin International Airport (CIAL) following a social media post aimed at a Kochi-Bengaluru Alliance flight on Saturday.

CIAL said a bomb threat was received for Alliance flight 9I 506 COK-BLR. Following this, the assessment committee "recommended enhancing security arrangements of passengers and baggage by increasing percentage of physical check and ETD check ... aircraft search," CIAL said in a press release.

"The bomb threat was received by the Twitter handle of Alliance Air (along with multiple airports and airlines). Since this route was specific to Kochi, BTAC was convened here along with other airports," CIAL said. CIAL added that the bomb threat turned out to be a hoax and the flight took off from Kochi at 5.29 pm after nearly five hours delay.

More than 30 flights of various Indian airlines, including Vistara, Air India and IndiGo, received bomb threats on Saturday, reports said. This week, at least 70 flights in India received bomb threats, most of which turned out to be hoax.

While most of the threats, like in the case of the Kochi flight, were made on social media, in one of the flights, a note was found in the lavatory saying there was a bomb.

Vistara reported that five of its flights on international routes received security threats through social media, while IndiGo said at least four of its flights got security-related alerts.