A bomb threat to a mid-air Russian airlines flight bound for New Delhi from Moscow turned out to be a hoax. Information that the plane carrying over 400 people including crew members and scheduled to land at the airport at about 3 am is full of explosives created a huge ruckus at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.

Immediately the information was passed on to the control room and a high alert was sounded at the airport. Apart from the Delhi airport authority, teams of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), IGI airport police, bomb disposal squad and other security agencies were put on high alert.

Runway number-29 was evacuated and a fire brigade team, ambulances, flight carry away vehicles were deployed near the runway. Moreover, to ensure full safety the airport terminal was also cleared and passengers present in the terminal were moved to a safe place.

A certain area of the airport was cordoned off and traffic outside the terminal building was removed to ensure a clear road for the movement of emergency vehicles if needed.

At about 2.48 am on Friday, the flight made an emergency landing at the airport and was immediately taken to an isolated place at the airport.

All the passengers along with crew members and their luggage were de-boarded from the flight after proper checking and frisking.

Later, bomb squad team along with CISF and IGI airport police team conducted a thorough search of the flight. The bomb squad ensured to check each and every corner of the flight during a 10 hours long search operation.

However, no suspicious item was found on the flight, only to declare the threat information as hoax.

The IGI airport police are now probing the matter and trying to trace out the person, who passed this fake information to the airport.

A senior police official of IGI Airport said that an email was received by the CISF regarding a bomb threat on Aeroflot flight number- SU 232 scheduled from Moscow to New Delhi at around 11.30 am on Thursday. The flight landed safely and nothing suspicious was found during checking.

There have been at least two incidents of alleged bomb threat on flights in the last few weeks.

Earlier, on October 3, the Indian Air Force had scrambled its fighter jets after receiving information of a bomb scare on a China-bound Iranian passenger flight, while flying over the Indian airspace. However, the aircraft later landed safely in China.

In another such incident, on September 30, a Malaysia-bound flight was delayed over a false bomb call. However, it came to fore during the investigation that the call was made after a fight between two passengers onboard the plane at the IGI Airport.