An Air India flight from Mumbai to Newark made an emergency landing in London due to a bomb threat. Ait India flight AI191 had taken off from Mumbai at 4.49 AM this morning, but it turned around after over Northern Ireland airspace and made a precautionary landing at the Stansted airport in London at around 10.15 AM local time.
The Boeing 777-337(ER) headed to Newark airport in New York had taken off more than three hours late, as its scheduled departure time is 1.30 AM. Air India had tweeted about the precautionary landing, but later they deleted the tweet.
The London Stansted Airport was closed for some time due to the emergency landing and the presence of the fighter planes. The official Twitter handle of the airport later confirmed that the airport was re-opened after the landing of Air India flight.
#UPDATE Our runway has now re-opened and is fully operational following a precautionary landing of Air India flight.
We are sorry for any disruption caused by the incident and would like to thank you for your patience.— London Stansted Airport (@STN_Airport) June 27, 2019
According to reports, two Typhoon jets of Royal Air Force were scrambled to escort the Air India aircraft. The jets flew at supersonic speed, which caused a loud sonic boom over Derbyshire. The Derbyshire police tweeted to inform that the loud bang that the people might have heard came from the sonic boom of the RAF fighters.
If you heard a loud bang over #Derbyshire today, this was as a result of a @RoyalAirForce jet passing over that caused a sonic boom.
— Derbyshire Police (@DerbysPolice) June 27, 2019
The aircraft has been taken away from normal flight operations and parked on an isolated stand at the airport, and it was being checked by the police. Essex police were at the airport when the flight landed.
Update: According to a Reuters report, an Air India official has said that the bomb threat was a hoax.
UPDATE: Air India official says bomb threat on Mumbai-Newark flight was a hoax, plane back in the air pic.twitter.com/eQPFfyeIDS
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 27, 2019
The Air India official said that the flight was back in the air after no bomb was found in the plane and the information turned out to be false.
