When you board an Air India flight, you probably don’t expect that your journey will end on a Royal Canadian Air Force jet. However, that’s exactly what happened for some passengers yesterday, after their flight diverted to the northern portion of Canada…
Continue reading: Air India 777 Diverts To Canada Over Bomb Threat, Air Force Gets Involved
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Pretty sure the standard procedure being to divert is a CYA sort of thing. It’s bad to waste fuel, but it would be the end of any organization that ignored a bomb threat that actually went through
I totally understand your perspective. However, it is a bit like getting everyone out of the pool if there are thunderstorms in the area. The chance of a bad outcome is very low, but the result of a bad outcome is unacceptably bad. I get that the downside of getting ppl out of the pool is lower than this diversion. I would make the punishment for such fake bomb scares extraordinarily high and do my best to prevent them.
The question I would ask on these diversions is whether there can be a relaxation of crew rest rules. I can easily imagine in these cases that a doctor or someone else could sign off on the crew's ability to work longer hours. This would be a good thing for the crew (perhaps a bonus from airline), the airline, and the passengers.
It seems quite silly that some people know no better than to spread hoaxes like this among the flying public. Better than this would have been the coverage of an 85-aircraft order placed from Airbus by Air India this past week. It’s very unlike OMAAT not to cover something as major as this...
I would love to be the person on the phone taking in such a call. "Oh, a bomb, you say? How most extraordinary. Thank you so much for letting us know and have a nice day now." Then put the receiver down and forget all about it...
You're right. And not to dwell on the obvious, but this diversion warrants post on OMAAT. If Air India ignored the threat and something actually went bad, it would be front page news around the world.
This threat came thru social media. So you'd just block the mean, nasty person and go back to looking at pictures of cats.
Airlines are supposed to train call center staff as to how to respond to such calls. Sadly I guess many don’t nowadays and they end up in some third party centre, ironically in India with incompetent staff who have no idea. Thank you for your feedback. Could you go online to submit a request lol.
That said, wasn’t there an incident in India which was very well handled.They even caught the culprit Perhaps indigo.
Turning to the diversion, better safe that sorry though.
Just read on Singapore local news that they scrambled fighter jets to escort an Air India Express flight to Changi
Imagine you’re some bored Eskimo drinking vodka and all of a sudden that huge plane flies over you ground shaking.
"a bomb threat that actually went through"
Now that I think about it though, has there ever actually been such a case in modern times? Where someone called in a bomb threat beforehand, and then there actually turned out to be a bomb on board (whether detonated or not)?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182
Air India Flight 182 was a passenger flight operating on the Montreal–London–Delhi–Mumbai route, that on 23 June 1985, disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean as a result of an explosion from a bomb planted by Canadian Sikh terrorists.[1][2][3] It was operated using a Boeing 747-237B registered VT-EFO. The incident happened en route from Montreal to London at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 m). The remnants of the aircraft fell into the sea approximately 190 kilometres (120 miles) off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens.
There have been over a dozen bomb threats against Air India and other Indian carriers in the last 24 hours. The Mumbai to JFK flight was also diverted yesterday.
You still weeping for not getting the attention, kiddo? Go thump-chest like your PM in Indian dailies.. he will give you a candy.
This plus the diplomatic drama between Canada and India amid alleged murders against Sikh separatists Canadian Citizens in Canada only Tightens security
Yes, it happened while waiting to read some reviews, all of a sudden this VT-CIE just came out of nowhere and ruined it.
The airline released a statement saying, there was a threat if the review didn't switch to COPA, captain Ben took the threat seriously and diverted away from Asia.
There was very little inconvenience because everyone was told to suddenly "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)"
In Related News: Indian High Commisioner (Ambassador) to Canada was declared a "Persona non Grata" for his involvement in Killing of a Canadian Citizen.
I don't think there was a specific bomb threat for this 1985 flight. Just an environment of bomb threats against the carrier.
There was specific intelligence about the threat to that exact flight, but the Canadian government buried it. They also disposed of wiretaps against the suspects and a number of other actions which compromised the eventual prosecution. The Justice Major Commission report outlines a lot of this.
@upstater - 15th October is the death anniversary of Tailwinder Singh Parmar, one of the prime accused in that bombing. There is always a spare of increased bomb threats against Indian carriers around this date every year, mostly carried out openly by Khalistani separatists based in the US and Canada to "commemorate" their dead "martyr".
This isn't specific to this particular incident, or Air India, but in general, when these types of threats are made (not just against aircraft), I suspect the authorities *do* go through a risk assessment. They probably know more than just "some random social media post". They might be able to trace the account and their history, or gather other information, and then make a determination of whether or not a threat is "credible".
Of course, sometimes they err, either being too cautious and diverting when they didn't need to, or the other way, disregarding warnings deemed non-credible that turn out to be real (e.g. "bin laden determined to strike in U.S."). It's a hard call, but rarely is it made just by information that we the public have available.
And regardless, I think that in this day and age, with people's tolerance for such risks being much lower than in the 70s/80s (when hijackings and bombings were much more commonplace and just accepted as part of the risk of flying), they probably made the right call.
Who Indian authorities had declared as terrorists. These weren’t some random Sikhs who were living peacefully in Canada.
The Indian High Commissoner should never be involved in a murder plot of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.
India is having a hissy fit, again - despite being totally in the wrong. This isn’t behaviour that befits the world’s largest democracy: it’s shameful.
FBI in US has also arrested an "Indian Hitman/Agent" that was planning to carry out an Assassination of an Attorney in NY.
The Indian Agent was photographed Giving $$$$$$$$$ to an FBI Informant.unfortunately US Govt is not pressing India due to High Indian Ifluence in US Govt.
“Let’s take our chances” is fine until it actually is a bomb and everyone will chastise the airline for not taking it seriously. With safety there’s no such thing as “taking chances”
We've seen cases of flights diverting to the middle of nowhere before, but I don't recall ever hearing about the military sending a plane to pick up stranded passengers. Has that ever happened before? Regardless, props to Canada for stepping up.