KARACHI: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight was delayed for over an hour on Monday after a bomb hoax call was received by the law enforcement agencies, it has been learnt.

Sources said that the hoax call was received minutes before the flight’s departure. The luggage and the aircraft were checked after which the flight was allowed to leave.

Responding to Dawn queries, PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar said that the Sukkur-Karachi flight PK-595 was scheduled to take off at 2.45pm and the passengers had also boarded the aircraft.

However, Sukkur police informed the Airport Security Force regarding the bomb threat before the flight took off. The information was received at around 2.40pm, he said, adding that as soon as the information was received the passengers were made to disembark and the luggage was offloaded, as per standard operating procedure. He said that the ATR aircraft and baggage were thoroughly checked by the ASF staffers and bomb disposal squad personnel and were subsequently cleared by the security agencies concerned.

The flight took off from Sukkur for Karachi after a delay of more than one hour, said the spokesperson.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018