Incident: Aeroflot A333 over Atlantic on Aug 16th 2012, bomb hoax
An Aeroflot Airbus A330-300, registration VQ-BPI performing flight SU-103 (dep Aug 15th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Moscow Sheremetyevo (Russia) with 236 people on board, was enroute over the Atlantic when American law enforcement received an anonymous message indicating five suitcases on board of the aircraft would carry explosives set to detonate upon arrival in Moscow. The crew was informed about that message and decided to divert to Keflavik (Iceland) where the aircraft landed safely on runway 20 about 2 hours after the crew declared emergency.
The aircraft, luggage and passengers were searched, no explosives were found. The aircraft was released to continue the flight, however, due to crew duty time limitations did not continue the journey. A replacement Airbus A330-300 registration VQ-BPY was dispatched to Kelfavik and reached Moscow on Aug 17th at about 03:38L with a delay of 15:13 hours. On Aug 19th Rosaviatsia (Russia's Civil Aviation Authority) said New York Police received an anonymous phone call stating the aircraft VQ-BPI could possibly explode during flight SU-103 from New York to Moscow. At the time of the phone call the aircraft was already two hours into the flight. Upon being informed about the threat the crew decided to divert to Keflavik, where the aircraft and luggage was searched with no traces of explosives detected. Due to crew duty time limitations and required crew rest a replacement aircraft VQ-BPY was dispatched to Keflavik and reached Moscow as flight SU-2299 with a delay of 15:13 hours. The incident aircraft reached Moscow about 4 hours after VQ-BPY. A second bomb threat is being reported in Russia that was phoned in to Russian Authorities before Polet flight VQ-751 was able to depart Moscow Domodedovo towards Voronezh (Russia). |
