Yesterday's bomb hoax highlights need for regular checks by skymarshals on all flights
Yesterday's bomb hoax highlights need for regular checks by skymarshals on all flights
You risk your life almost every time you board a flight, because sky marshals monitor them only randomly.
The need to deploy them regularly has resurfaced after passenger Sanjay Malik claimed to have a bomb on a Delhi-Mumbai Indigo aircraft (6E 181) and demanded the flight be diverted to Pakistan yesterday.
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In the absence of sky marshals, passengers had to overpower Sanjay.
It has been revealed that Sanjay is mentally disturbed.
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Aviation expert Vipul Saxena said, "The fact that terrorists can be anywhere has increased the threat to passengers.
Sky marshals should be made mandatory for all flights."
Mandatory
After the hijack incident in Kandahar in 1999, it had been decided that all flights to sensitive areas like J&K would have sky marshals.
"Passengers are not expected to come to the rescue during such situations," said a retired Bureau of Civil Aviation Security official.
Added Saxena, "The government must be stringent while screening antecedents of sky marshals, as cases of drug smuggling have been reported in USA and a molestation case was reported in India."
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Indigo President Aditya Ghosh said, "The cabin crew treated the incident as a level-1 threat and ensured the safety of passengers."
This is the second bomb hoax incident on Indigo Airlines this year.
A passenger on board Delhi-Mumbai Indigo flight created a scare minutes before it landed in Mumbai claiming there was a bomb on board and demanding that the flight be diverted to Pakistan.
Sanjay Mallik traveling on board Indigo flight 6E 181 was arrested, by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials manning airport security, immediately after the flight landed in Mumbai at 11.45 a.m.
Fifteen minutes before landing the passenger screamed that a bomb had been planted on the aircraft and that it would go off shortly, a CISF commandant said.u00a0u00a0
Airport police officials who have now interrogated Mallik for interrogation said that the passenger appeared to be mentally unstable.
All passengers on the aircraft are safe. Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) officials are now conducting a complete search of the aircraft.
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