Seven flights make emergency landing on bomb threats in over 3 years

New Delhi: A total of 20 incidents of emergency landings, including those due to bomb threats, have been reported to aviation regulator DGCA over the last three years.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma told the Lok Sabha today that this year there was an emergency landing of a GoAir flight due to bomb threat. The Bhubaneswar-Mumbai flight was diverted to Nagpur on January 23.

"During last three years and the current year, a total of 13 incidents of emergency landings due to technical glitches have been reported to DGCA. There have been seven incidents of emergency landing due to false rumours (bomb threat)," Sharma said in a written reply.

For 2016, the minister gave details of emergency landing due to bomb threat as on March 1.

According to him, on account of bomb threats, there were six emergency landings in 2015 while there was only one such incident in 2014.

"Caller Identification (CLI) facility has been installed on all important telephone numbers of the airports and airlines offices both at airports and in their call centres. Legal actions are initiated against the person(s) whenever such fake/hoax calls are detected," Sharma said.

Meanwhile, there were 13 emergency landings during the period from 2013 till January 5, 2016. Out of them, one such incident happened this year and in 2015.

In 2014, there were four such incidents and in 2013, the number stood at seven.

"All incidents are investigated by DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation)/ PIB (Permanent Investigation Board) of the concerned airlines in association with officers of the regional air safety offices depending upon the severity of the case," Sharma said.

Under the annual surveillance programme, audit of the operators are conducted and recommendations from such reports are followed up for implementation. "The compliance of the action taken by the operator is further verified during the next audit," he added.