New Delhi: A Goa-bound flight from Moscow with 240 passengers on board was diverted to Uzbekistan on January 21, Saturday after the authorities at the Dabolim airport received an email, which claimed that there was a bomb on the plane, police told PTI.
The flight, operated by Russian airline Azur Air, was scheduled to land at the Dabolim airport in South Goa at 4.15 am, a senior police official told the news agency.
“The flight (AZV2463) was diverted to Uzbekistan after an email was received at 12.30 am by the office of the Dabolim airport director, which said that a bomb was planted on the plane. The flight was diverted before it entered the Indian airspace. It landed at an airport in Uzbekistan around 4.30 am,” he said.
Apart from passengers, there were seven crew members on board, he said.
A Russian embassy spokesperson told The Wire, “The Embassy is closely following the situation around the Azur Air flight AZV2463 en route from Perm to Goa. According to available information, the plane made an emergency landing in Uzbekistan after a report of alleged bomb scare. The aircraft is being inspected, the airline is preparing accommodation of the passengers in hotels.”
This is the second such incident on the Moscow-Goa route involving the same airline in less than two weeks.
On January 9, a Moscow-to-Goa flight, operated by Azur Air, had made an emergency landing at Gujarat’s Jamnagar airport after the Azur Air office in Russia received a bomb threat email.
After the threat email, the Dabolim airport was put on alert and the personnel of Goa Police, Quick Response Team (QRT), Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and dog squad were deployed at the facility as a precautionary measure, deputy superintendent of police (Vasco), Salim Shaikh, told PTI.
This time, the threat email was received by the office of the Dabolim airport director, sources told the news agency.
A senior official of the Dabolim airport said a police complaint would be lodged in connection with the incident.