WEB DESK: A private airline’s flight from Islamabad to Karachi faced significant disruption on Tuesday after a hoax bomb alert caused panic among passengers and crew.
The situation unfolded when two passengers made a joke about a bomb onboard, prompting immediate action from security authorities.
The flight was scheduled to leave at an exact time of 2:00pm, and the captain informed the control tower about the threat. Immediately, action was taken to disembark the passengers and conduct a thorough search of the aircraft by the Airports Security Force (ASF). A thorough investigation showed that the threats were baseless.
The ASF nabbed the two passengers who were their joking cohorts. According to the officials, these friends stated that it was initiated as a joke by the third friend. It caused a three-and-a-half-hour delay for other travel purposes and alarmed a large crowd of passengers, including eight Members of the National Assembly (MNAs), one of whom was Deputy Speaker Mustafa Shah.
The incident was confirmed by the National Assembly’s spokesperson as being a serious debate over the hoax. The airliner expects to operate further flights soon after this plane cleared security clearance, according to its spokesperson.
This shows increasing tendencies towards irresponsible actions on a flight. Another example was when an 18-year-old British youth faced huge penalties for jokingly threatening to blow up the aircraft, which resulted in major international action by Spanish authorities.
Authorities have reemphasized the import of such ignorance as to safety aboard an aircraft. Not even jokes about threats would be taken to be utmos.
