No Bomb Found After Emergency Landing

Anonymous call warned of explosives on Aeroflot flight
By Mark Russell,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 16, 2012 5:04 AM CDT
Updated Aug 16, 2012 1:36 PM CDT
Bomb Threat Forces NY-Moscow Flight to Land
An Aeroflot A330 flying from New York to Moscow was forced to land in Iceland today after the airline received an anonymous bomb threat.   (YouTube)

A bomb threat forced an Aeroflot flight carrying 256 passengers from New York to Moscow to make an emergency landing in Iceland early this morning, reports the BBC, but no bomb was ultimately found aboard the plane. An anonymous call to law enforcement agencies in the US warned that explosives had been planted in five suitcases and they would explode upon reaching Moscow. "The pilot took the decision to land the plane and it landed safely," a spokeswoman for the Russian airline says.

A subsequent search revealed that there were no explosives aboard, the Wall Street Journal reports. Passengers never knew about the threat, an Iceland police official said, calling the hoax a "very serious matter ... because of all the resources we had to deploy. It's not a good thing for the general security when [police] are not able to do any other task." (More Aeroflot stories.)

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