Flight 581 of the Iranian airline Mahan Air, connecting the cities of Tehran and Guangzhou arrived safely and on time at its destination in China, despite having received a bomb threat while flying over Indian territory.
The incident took place on Monday, October 2, as reported by the Reuters news agency. After receiving the bomb warning on board, the Indian Air Force (IAF) deployed several Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets to intercept the aircraft. After being intercepted by these aircraft, the A340-600 was tracked executing several holding circuits over the city of Jaipur, in the country’s northwestern region.
According to Aninews, during the wait, the pilots of the aircraft requested priority to land at Delhi airport. Indian air traffic control denied the request and provided vectors to Jaipur airport, which the A340 crew did not accept. They then decided to continue to the flight’s destination, the Chinese city of Guangzhou.
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At that time the IAF received information from Iran urging to «disregard» the bomb threat. After this, the fighters returned to their base and the flight continued its journey to the Chinese city, where it arrived without incident several hours later. Subsequently, Mahan Air issued a statement noting that «our aircraft was traveling from Tehran to Guangzhou. As soon as the pilot became aware of the possibility of a bomb on board he informed the relevant authorities.»
«At our operations control center, we determined that the threat was false and the flight continued its journey safely. The reports of a bomb on board the aircraft were solely aimed at disrupting security and tranquility,» the airline said. It should be recalled that Iran is currently at the center of the world’s attention due to allegations of human rights violations following the death of activist Mahsa Amini two weeks ago.
