05 November,2010 06:45 AM IST | | Bipin Kumar Singh
Emergency at airport as Amsterdam flight lands with suspected explosive; cops say it may be a test of our anti-terror preparedness
AN emergency was declared at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport as an Amsterdam-Mumbai Delta Airlines flight with 244 passengers on board landed at the airport at 11 pm yesterday.
The aircraft had a suspected explosive on board.
A Mumbai-bound Delta Airlines flight carrying 244 passengers from Amsterdam to Mumbai landed in emergency conditions after an unidentified object was noticed in the aircraft's cargo-hold
"The flight, Delta 70, was quickly taxied onto runaway 1432 which was declared an isolation bay," said spokesperson of Mumbai International Airport Limited, Manish Kalghatgi.
Passengers were evacuated within 25 minutes.
Tucked into a far corner of the airport, the isolation bay is set aside for aircraft which come in with suspected explosives on board. The isolation bay is cut off from the main airport landing area to avoid any possible damage to life and property, in case of any eventuality.
Though the emergency at the airport was lifted, the search for the suspected explosive was still on at the time of going to press.
Landing of other flights was disrupted at the airport by nearly 18 minutes.
Suspicious object
The pilot contacted the traffic control authorities for emergency landing.
"A few minutes before the flight landed, authorities in Amsterdam alerted the Air Traffic Control in Mumbai about a suspicious object which was in the flight's cargo-hold," a senior police official at the airport said on condition of anonymity.
No sooner was the aircraft taken to the bay, than an army of experts from the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad was rushed to the flight and the entire area cordoned off.
Fire tenders and ambulances too were pressed into service.
A Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) official, however, said this could be a mock drill on the part of the US authorities to check the preparedness of our airport authorities to fight terror.
US President Barack Obama is expected to land at the same airport in a couple of days.
"We are in touch with the CISF who have informed us that the quantity of explosive, if any, could be negligible," the police official said. "Though we are taking this seriously, we doubt this is a real threat."
"This could be a mock drill to check how prepared we are to tackle terror," said the CISF official, who was off-duty when the emergency call came in last night.
