Plane aborts take-off after bomb scare

PESHAWAR: A Shaheen Air International plane with 168 passengers on board was stopped from taking off at the last minute due to a bomb scare. It was allowed to fly after two hours when the authorities gave it the all-clear.

Flight NL-786 was about to fly from Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport (BKIA) to Dubai around 2.30pm. It had already roiled onto the tarmac and was gearing up to take off when officials received a call that there could be a bomb on board the flight. They immediately told the pilot to abort, and return to the terminal.

“The plane, which was ready for take-off, was immediately asked to stop and all the passengers were offloaded,” a senior official of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said. Security agencies searched through the plane but found nothing. The airport remained closed for two hours.

BKIA Manager Tahir Sikandar confirmed that the plane had been stopped and searched. Security at the airport has been stepped up, he added.

“It caused panic among the passengers but we could not risk their lives,” CAA spokesperson Pervez George explained to The Express Tribune. In such situations, passenger aircraft are allowed to fly only when they are cleared.

The CAA official added that while passengers had been offloaded, they were not questioned. The plane was allowed to proceed after all security checks were complete.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2015.