Pilot not informed before take-off about bomb threat?

The Hindu
Kolkata, June 7. (PTI): The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is inquiring into the reasons behind the reported delay in the passing of the information of the bomb threat to the pilot of the Kolkata-bound Air Deccan flight, as the plane took off from Port Blair without any check in the aircraft there.

Sources at the N S C Bose International airport here said the pilot was tipped off about the bomb threat 24 minutes after the call had been made and had apparently no other option but to head towards the destination Kolkata with the 190 passengers on board.

Though fortunately the call turned out to be a hoax after the Airbus 320 was thoroughly checked by the bomb disposal squad at the isolation bay after its safe landing at the city airport, the checking drill could have been undertaken before the plane's take off from Port Blair had the pilot been immediately intimated about the phone call, the sources pointed out.

The call had been made at 9:35 am to the city airport, when the plane was still on ground at Port Blair and while other emergency arrangements were being made here, the pilot was apparently in the dark about the developments before the plane took off, the sources said.

The AAI was inquiring into the reasons behind this communication gap, they said.

To a question, the sources said there was no Caller Line Identification (CLI) attachment with the particular phone, which had received the bomb threat call, in the fire station at city airport here.

An ambulance, fire brigade and other necessary arrangements were kept ready when the aircraft landed at the airport here amid full emergency alert.

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Times of India

KOLKATA: A Kolkata-bound Air Deccan flight was allowed to take off from Port Blair with 130 passengers on Tuesday morning despite an anonymous call claiming a bomb was present on the plane.

Though the call was received at NSCBI fire station at 9.30 am, air traffic controllers failed to alert the captain of flight DN 698.

The plane, which was in the bay at the time, received clearance for takeoff procedure and was airborne at 9.58 am, nearly half-an-hour after the call.

"By the time the Port Blair ATC was notified, the plane had already taken off,"said Airports Authority of India's regional executive director SPS Bakshi, acknowledging the inordinate delay in relaying a message of utmost urgency.

Even more intriguing, the aircraft did not return to Port Blair. Instead, the pilot felt it prudent to make the two-hour journey over Bay of Bengal, putting 136 lives, including his own, at risk.

Safety protocol requires a bomb scare to be treated seriously at all times. A grounded aircraft has to be thoroughly checked by the bomb detection squad.

The flight can take off only after the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and the DGCA clear it. If the plane is airborne at the time of the scare call, the pilot has to land at the earliest possible opportunity to minimise the risk.

On Tuesday, all rules were flouted. The plane took off after the scare call. And continued to fly for two hours. "The sequence of events is incomprehensible.

If the bomb scare was at 9.30 pm, Port Blair should have been alerted immediately and takeoff suspended. Even if the plane was airborne by the time the alert was sounded, the plane should have returned there,"said former Indian captain S L Bagchi.

The only way the pilot's action could be justified, Bagchi reasoned, was if he had learnt of the bomb scare midway through.

Bakshi, though, admitted that there were several anomalies and ordered a probe in the evening. "BCAS and AAI's security officials are going through the tape transcripts. Perhaps, the bomb scare call was too fuzzy and took a while to decipher,"he told TOI.

For the record, the call turned out to be a hoax. NSCBI was put on emergency mode and the plane allowed priority landing on arrival.

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The incident:

The Hindu

Bomb threat on Air Deccan plane, passengers land safely
Kolkata, June 6 (PTI): A bomb threat in a Kolkata-bound Air Deccan flight from Port Blair this morning turned out to be a hoax and the plane landed safely at NSC Bose International airport here with 190 passengers on board.

Airport sources said that the fire station at the airport received a message at 9.35 am that a bomb was allegedly planted in the Airbus 320 plane of Air Deccan and immediately all emergency arrangements were made.

Ambulance, fire brigade and other necessary arrangements were kept ready when the aircraft landed at the airport amid full emergency alert, the sources said adding that the plane was taken to the isolation bay immediately after landing at 11.52 am.

All the passengers were safe. They were allowed to leave after they and their baggage were checked and no suspicious object was found on them.

The bomb disposal squad was checking the plane thoroughly at the isolation bay for any explosive device planted in the aircraft, the sources said.