Czech police search Lufthansa flight after bomb threat

SYDNEY - Agence France-Presse

REUTERS Photo

Czech police were searching a Lufthansa plane Friday after an anonymous caller said a bomb was aboard a 144-person flight that took off from Frankfurt and landed in Prague.
 
"All the passangers have already left the aircraft, but at this moment I can't yet officially confirm that it was a false alert, as the search will still take several hours," Czech police spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova told AFP.
 
She said a man told the Czech carrier CSA that "terrorists" were carrying a bomb aboard the flight in a call placed at 9:33 (0833 GMT), an hour before the plane landed at Vaclav Havel Airport Prague.
 
Police detained the caller, described as a mentally unhinged 34-year-old man, before the flight landed by tracking down his phone to the western city of Pilsen.
 
Airport traffic had not been affected, airport spokeswoman Marika Janouskova told AFP