Raleigh, April 29: A domestic Continental Airlines flight enroute to the US capital was diverted to North Carolina on Wednesday after an apparent bomb threat was found in the plane’s bathroom.
A message scrawled on an airplane restroom mirror “left the impression that it could be a bomb situation on the airplane,” said Ted Johnson, executive director of Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greenboro, North Carolina.
Local and federal law enforcement agents with bomb-sniffing dogs rushed aboard Continental Airlines flight 3006 when it landed at the airport near Greensboro at 10:43 am (1443 GMT).
“The plane taxied to a remote location where it was met by law enforcement,” said Lauren Gaches, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Authority.
After a search of the plane failed to discover anything dangerous, the flight’s 45 passengers and three crew members were allowed to reboard and continue on to Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC.
It was the second times in as many days that a US flight was diverted following a bomb threat.
On Tuesday, a Delta Airlines flight enroute from Paris to Atlanta, Georgia was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Maine after a passenger claimed to have hidden explosives on board the plane.
No explosives were found aboard the craft, and the passenger — a decorated US veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — has been charged with making a false bomb threat.
The plane diverted Wednesday was an Embraer passenger jet en route from Houston, Texas.
Johnson said no one had been arrested or detained, but authorities are continuing to investigate the incident.
“There will be a continuation of the investigation in hopes of finding out who did this,” he said.
US aviation officials have been on edge since a young Nigerian passenger attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day by igniting explosives he smuggled aboard in his underwear.
–Agencies