Lufthansa flight from Istanbul diverted over bomb scare

ISTANBUL

Picture taken on September 10, 2014 shows aircrafts of German airline Lufthansa standing at the park position at the Franz-Josef-Strauss-Airport in Munich, southern Germany. AFP Photo

A Lufthansa flight from Istanbul was diverted over a bomb scare before being allowed to continue on its way after a search of the aircraft May 10.

The German airliner’s LH-1305 flight between Istanbul and Frankfurt returned to Atatürk Airport in Istanbul shortly after take-off early May 10. Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu Agency reported the cause of the diversion as a warning about a “bomb,” which turned out to be a hoax. Doğan News Agency, on the other hand, reported the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after he heard “noises in the cargo section” of the plane.

The aircraft was eventually able to leave Istanbul after a search of the plane revealed nothing suspicious. 
Security forces at Atatürk Airport also searched Turkish Airlines (THY) flight TK-1305 from Istanbul to Malaga. The aircraft, which took off at 10:00 a.m., returned to Istanbul for a bomb search.

The incident was yet another in a series of bomb scares on THY flights recently. In March and April, THY’s Istanbul-Tokyo, Istanbul-Sao Paolo, Istanbul-Lisbon and Istanbul-Basel flights were diverted due to bomb hoaxes.