OSLO, Jan 13: A passenger plane flying from Pakistan to Denmark was evacuated due to a bomb threat against it while it was on a lay-over at Oslo’s main airport, police said.
“The threat came in at 4.40pm when the plane was on the ground. It was evacuated and we are now inspecting it,” said Hans Holmgrund, the police station chief in Gardermoen, where Oslo’s international airport is located.
He said the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane was a Boeing 777 and that the evacuation “went well and was not problematic”, adding that parts of the airport had also been evacuated as police checked the aircraft for explosives.
Holmgrund would not say where the threat had come from and how it had been delivered, saying only that the case was under investigation.
The Dagbladet daily’s online edition however quoted airport information chief Jo Kobro as saying the threat had been called in to an airport information desk. “A threat was called in from a Pakistani number.
“The message was that the plane would be blown up,” he said, adding that the call came in at about the time the plane was supposed to take off for Copenhagen.
Some 300 people were reportedly onboard at the time. (The incident took place on Monday according to the AFP and Tuesday according to AP).—Agencies