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Kenyan security officers on Sunday removed a suspected device from this Air France flight after it made an emergency landing in the coastal city of Mombasa. Photo: Xinhua
The suspicious device discovered in the bathroom of an Air France flight was a hoax, the CEO of Air France said Sunday.
The Boeing 777 Air France flight 463 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when the pilots requested an emergency landing at the Moi International Airport, police spokesman Charles Owino said.
“It requested an emergency landing when a device suspected to be an explosive was discovered in the lavatory,” Owino said.
The device was made of cardboard, paper and a household timer, said Frederic Gagey, the head of Air France. “This object did not contain explosives,” said Gagey at a news conference in Paris.
Gagey congratulated the crew for their cool-headed reaction to divert the plane. A safety check was carried out in the bathroom before the flight, he said. He denied any security failure in the flight, saying that passengers are checked and sometimes double-checked on flights.
Six passengers are being questioned over the incident, said a Kenyan police official, who is part of the investigation and who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press.
A passenger reported the device to the cabin crew who informed the pilots leading to an emergency landing at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa. One of those being interrogated is the man who reported the package.
The plane was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members on board, Owino said
The airline said it was sending another plane to Mombasa to fly the passengers to Paris. Photo: AP
“The plane just went down slowly, slowly, slowly, so we just realised probably something was wrong,” said a passenger who identified himself as Benoit Lucchini of Paris. He spoke to journalists after leaving the plane in Mombasa.
“The personnel of Air France was just great, they were just wonderful. So they keep everybody calm. We did not know what was happening,” said Luchini. “So we secured the seat belt to land in Mombasa because we thought it was a technical problem but actually it was not a technical problem. It was something in the toilet. Something wrong in the toilet, it could be a bomb.”
The plane arrived in Mombasa at around 1.30 a.m. and the passengers disembarked using an emergency slides, he said. A couple of people got twisted ankles but no one seriously injured, said Steven Ciaran, 30 an Irishman working on Reunion Island.
Two Air France flights from the U.S. to Paris were diverted on Nov. 18 after bomb threats were received. No bombs were found on the planes.
A suspicious device found on an Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris that prompted an emergency landing was harmless and caused a "false alarm", the airline's chief executive says.
Air France staff decided to land the Boeing 777 at the nearest airport - in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa - after a passenger found the object in the toilets late on Saturday and alerted crew, CEO Frederic Gagey said in Paris on Sunday.
The suspicious object was made out of cardboard and paper and contained a timer, Gagey said, adding that it must have been planted during the flight.
"All the information available to us at the moment indicates that the object was not capable of creating an explosion or damaging a plane," Gagey told a news conference in the French capital. "It was a false alarm."
Air France said it planned to take legal action over the incident, without giving further details.
The 459 passengers and 14 crew on board flight AF463 were evacuated using the emergency slides after the plane landed.
Kenyan Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery told reporters at Mombasa's Moi International Airport on Sunday that an undisclosed number of passengers were being questioned about the suspect device, but he did not say if they were under arrest.
"We're in touch with Mauritius to know how security screening of passengers was done. A few passengers are being interrogated," he said.
Air France said in a statement it had "immediately decided to reinforce the security measures in Mauritius" after the incident, which follows three bomb alerts in the United States in the last few weeks.
Airports of Mauritius, the operator of the airport in Plaine Magnien, said airport security had been tightened and Deputy Prime Minister Xavier-Luc Duval would meet on Monday with government security agencies to discuss measures taken following the incident.
Gagey said arrangements were being made to fly the passengers and crew back to Paris.
A passenger initially suspected over a bomb hoax on board an Air France flight has been released.
Border guards at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris had earlier on Monday detained the 58-year-old retired policeman after he arrived back in France.
Flight AF463 was headed from Mauritius to Paris on Sunday with 473 people on board when a passenger discovered a suspicious object.
The plane was subsequently diverted to the nearest airport, which was Mombasa in Kenya.
The public prosecution service in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny says the man was the passenger who alerted the crew to the presence of the suspicious object.
The authorities earlier confirmed that an investigation had been opened into the bomb hoax, which Air France said had put lives in danger.
The airline said it is seeking to press charges against whoever planted the mock device - made of paper, cardboard and a kitchen timer - in the plane's lavatory.
A spokeswoman confirmed that the Air France desk at Charles de Gaulle airport had filed a complaint to the state prosecution service in Bobigny.
The 459 passengers and 14 crew members were flown back to the Paris airport one day after they were forced to land in Mombasa.
Air France chief Frederic Gagey said on Sunday that there was no evidence of a safety breach on Mauritius, which is a favourite holiday destination for French nationals because a large part of the Indian Ocean island's population can speak French.
The device did not contain any explosives and was therefore not detected by security officials there, Gagey said.
