Fake bomb threat diverts passenger jet
- Source: Global Times
- [02:31 July 16 2010]
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By Guo Qiang
A bomb threat forced a passenger plane of Asia's biggest airliner to make an emergency landing late Wednesday, but authorities said Thursday that the scare was found to be a hoax.
China Southern Airlines Flight 3912, en route from Urumqi, capital of northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to Guangzhou in the south, was diverted to Lanzhou Zhongchuan Airport after receiving warnings of a bomb on board.
All 93 passengers, including an infant, and 18 crewmembers were evacuated immediately after landing. Security personnel spent hours searching the plane before confirming that the threat was fake, Xinhua reported Thursday. The plane was cleared and proceeded to Guangzhou Thursday morning.
In addition to conducting a thorough search of the flight, cabin and luggage, lo-cal police also questioned passengers, but nothing suspicious was found, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the country's aviation security watchdog, said Thursday. The investigation is ongoing.
A passenger aboard the flight, who gave his surname as Huang, recalled the scare to the Global Times.
"Flight attendants told us that the plane would make an emergency landing half an hour after departing from Urumqi because the weather condition in Guangzhou were not suitable for a safe landing. Passengers appeared calm," said Huang, a Guangzhou native.
"But we were kind of confused when landing at the Zhongchuan airport because of a heavy presence of armed police," he said.
"We were not informed of the real reason of the emergency landing until we were on board again for Guangzhou."
Yang Defeng, deputy press officer of China Southern Airlines, told the Global Times that such incidents are rare in China, but not uncommon in the aviation industry worldwide.
Yang said the company would compensate passengers for their financial losses, without further elaborating.
Wang Wenwu, a press officer with the Guangzhou-based airliner, told the Global Times Thursday that "The airport should be in charge of all security checks. For us, we have contingency measures in place in case of any emergency landing."
A staff member at Urumqi Diwobao International Airport told the Global Times that authorities didn't up the level of security checks following the incident, and the security of all flights departing from the airport could be assured.
"The incident does not mean the security checks at the airport were flawed," she said.
A Uyghur woman set fire in the toilet onboard of a China Southern flight in 2008.
Last year, China Southern received a similar bomb threat, which was later found to be a hoax, the Nanfang Metropolitan Daily reported.
China Southern Airlines flew more than 66 million passengers last year, the third-largest number in the world behind American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
Zhang Wuju, a lawyer specializing in criminal law, told the Global Times Thursday that whether the person who reported the bomb is prosecuted will depend on his or her intentions.
"If the suspect did this with malicious intent, he or she will be dealt with according to the criminal law," he said. "However there are also possibilities that someone did it with good intentions for the safety of passengers."
The third amendment of criminal law states that a suspect who is involved in fabricating or intentionally disseminating terrorist information will be sentenced to a fix term in prison of no more than five years if the consequences are deemed as serious.
The bomb scare came one week after the first anniversary of the deadly riots in Xinjiang that left nearly 200 dead.
Li Weijian, an expert on international affairs with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies told the Global Times that such an incident is likely to make people associate it with the July 5 riot, but he warned against taking it too seriously.
"The possibility of involvement of terrorist forces around Xinjiang in the (bomb threat) can't be ruled out. But it is unnecessary to highlight the severity of terrorist threats in the area simply because of last year's deadly riot in the area," Li said.
Another possibility, he said, is that someone who is simply discontent with society made the threat out of anger, or as a hoax, to disturb the peace and attract attention.
Song Shengxia, Liu Linlin and Zhao Zhijie contributed to this story
