All 190 passengers and crew aboard a Ryanair flight from Poland on Sunday disembarked safely in Athens International Airport with an escort of two Greek warplanes after a bomb alert was reported to authorities.
Greek police spokesperson Constantia Dimoglidou said the Boeing 737 flight from Katowice in Poland was diverted to an isolated area for inspection after the pilot reported the presence of an explosive device onboard.
Firefighters were dispatched to the scene when the plane arrived in Athens at around 5.35 p.m. local time as a precaution. But a search of the plane and passengers’ luggage did not reveal “anything suspicious.”
“The pilot informed the Athens control tower but we don’t know where the information originally came from,” Dimoglidou told AFP.
The Polish airport of Katowice said that its airport information centre was alerted of the possible bomb threat when the aircraft was flying over Slovakia and contacted the pilot.
“After the plane took off, there was a call to the airport information centre concerning the possible presence of an explosive device on board,” Piotr Adamczyk, public relations manager at Katowice airport, told AFP.
Two Greek F-16 jets were scrambled to escort the flight when it entered Greek airspace after being escorted by Hungarian warplanes first, AFP reported, citing an unnamed source from the Greek Defense Ministry.
The plane was first rerouted over the sea, but authorities subsequently allowed it to make landing at the airport.
“Crew onboard flight FR6385 travelling from Katowice to Athens were notified of a potential security threat onboard and in line with safety procedures, continued to Athens where it landed safely before being met by the Greek authorities,” Ryanair said.
