India’s Airplane Bomb Hoax Crisis: What A Mess

As if the airline industry isn’t complex enough under normal circumstances, Indian airlines are dealing with quite the challenge at the moment, as we’ve seen dozens of airplane bomb threats over the past week. This has caused delays, diversions, and more.

India sees surge in airplane bomb threats

So far this week, more than 70 flights in India have received bomb threats, though they’ve all turned out to be false.

For example, on Monday at least three flights received bomb threats, on Tuesday at least 10 flights, and on Wednesday at least seven flights. That number only increased later in the week. Perhaps the highest profile case involved an Air India 777 flying from Delhi to Chicago, which diverted to Iqaluit, and ended up stranding passengers, requiring a rescue flight from the Royal Canadian Air Force.

All of these bomb threats have been made anonymously, from unverified and newly created social media accounts.

On Friday and Saturday, an anonymous X/Twitter account with the handle @adamlanza111 (which has now been suspended) posted bomb threats for dozens of flights. Not only did this account claim that there were bombs onboard flights in India, but the account made similar claims for many foreign carriers.

In each case, the threats were identical, with five flights listed for each airline. For example, here’s one of the threats that was made against IndiGo, India’s largest airline:

Hi. There are bombs placed onboard of 5 your planes.
-Flight 6E11
-Flight 6E17
-Flight 6E58
-Flight 6E108
-Flight 6E184
No one will make it out alive.
Hurry up and evacuate the plane.

So, umm, will no one make it out alive, or should they hurry up and evacuate? Those aren’t exactly clear instructions. It’s worth noting that in some cases, these threats were made for flights that had already been completed.

Indian authorities are taking threats seriously

India has long had a policy of taking all airplane bomb threats seriously, regardless of how farfetched they may seem. That continues to apply now, though one wonders how much longer that will go on.

Authorities managed to apprehend one minor who was responsible for the bomb threats on Monday, though haven’t yet found those responsible for subsequent threats (though I have to imagine they’re likely to be minors as well).

As you’d expect, it can be challenging to track people down with anonymous online accounts who are using VPNs. However, government agencies are working together to try and stop this going forward, including increasing penalties for those found to be behind these threats. Apparently the government is considering putting these people on the no-fly list, which hardly seems like the worst punishment for such behavior.

While that’s all fine, maybe it’s time that these threats just aren’t taking seriously, when it’s determined that there’s no legitimacy to them? I mean, this latest round of threats included claims about bombs on American, Delta, and JetBlue flights. You know what those airlines (and US authorities) didn’t do, though? They didn’t divert planes or delay flights, because it’s so obvious that this is a hoax.

I’m curious if Indian officials will eventually decide that it’s time to scale back how seriously these threats are taken. If not, I have to imagine that the number of threats will just increase, as mischievous teenagers find this to be an amusing hobby. The more seriously the bomb threats are taken, the more likely teenagers are to do this.

Don’t get me wrong, if there’s a reason to believe that a threat is legitimate, it should of course be taken seriously. But some random social media account claiming that each airline has five flights with bombs is just ridiculous.

Bottom line

Indian airlines have faced dozens of bomb threats this week from anonymous online accounts. This seems to be a case of “monkey see, monkey do,” as one minor made some threats earlier in the week, and now other people have set up online accounts to do the same.

With the government taking this so seriously, I imagine it increases the thrill that some people get from this behavior.

What do you make of India’s airplane bomb hoax mess?