An email warning of a bomb on a Ryanair flight from Porto to Brussels yesterday led to the flight being delayed for three hours while the plane was frisked by explosive experts.
The mail is understood to have come through after the 180 passengers and six crew members had boarded the plane, which meant they all had to disembark and return to the airport building, reports Correio da Manhã.
A search by the PSP’s bomb squad “found nothing”, added the paper, and passengers and crew reboarded and finally flew to their destination.
This latest threat follows an almost identical incident earlier this summer in Poland.
The Polish hoax however came via telephone and was traced to the home of a 48-year-old man.
Police told a press conference afterwards that it was an “isolated incident”.
“There is no evidence here that we are dealing with an organised group”, Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek told journalists.
Coincidentally, Ryanair passengers in Bristol were delayed last month after “a suspicious package” was found on an incoming flight from Alicante, Spain.
The Bath Chronicle revealed the “suspicious package” was in fact a “written hoax bomb threat”.
As a result of the August incident, 12 planes were diverted to alternative airports, inconveniencing hundreds of passengers.
