New Delhi: An alert was sounded at Indira Gandhi International airport here on Wednesday after authorities received a call about a “big balloon” hovering over it.
Police said the call centre of the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) received a call about spotting of the big balloon following which the airport was put on alert.
DCP of IGI airport D K Gupta said all security agencies have been informed about the information though police has not spotted the object.
“The airport was put on high alert after the DIAL call centre received a call about a big balloon spotted near the airport on Wednesday evening.
“The call was received around 5 PM and the caller said that the big balloon was heading from the airport to Aya Nagar following which an alert was issued at the IGI and all security agencies have been informed about it,” Gupta said.
Meanwhile, four bomb threat calls received in quick succession at Delhi and Bengaluru airports forced aviation authorities ground three flights, including two international, sending a panic wave among fliers.
While Air India and Jet Airways flights to Kathmandu were grounded at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here, no-frills airline AirAsia’s Goa flight from Bengaluru also failed to take off on scheduled time due to similar reasons.
The Kathmandu-bound flights of Air India and Jet Airways, which were scheduled to take off at 1315 hours and 1325, were halted and sent to the isolation bay just before they were readying for departure after the airport police received a bomb threat call. “Around 1 PM, the airport police received an anonymous call, saying that there were bombs inside two laptop (bags), kept in the planes of Air India and Jet Airways,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGIA) D K Gupta said.
Immediately, the authorities decided to ground both the flights, which were to carry 121 and 122 passengers respectively and take the two aircraft to the isolation bay for an extensive search of the baggage, cargo and aircraft, sources said.
“Jet Airways flight 9W 260, scheduled to depart from Delhi for Kathmandu at 1325 hrs, has been delayed due to a security alert. All 122 guests and 7 crew have been taken to the departures waiting area at the airport,” Jet Airways said in a statement.
The Air India flight finally took off at 1950 hours after receiving clearance from the security agencies.
“#AI215 DEL-KTM, which was delayed due to bomb threat, took off at 1950 hrs with a change in aircraft after security clearances,” Air India tweeted.
Before this, the flight was delayed for the second time just when security agencies were carrying out the search. “#AI 215 DEL-KTM has been further delayed due to a fresh threat call & will take off only after security clearances,” the airline had tweeted.
“Earlier on Wednesday, Flight AI 215 was evacuated and all 121 passengers were taken to the terminal as aircraft was at the bay area for security check up,” Air India spokesperson GP Rao said in a statement later.