Two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) planes, carrying 164 and 378 passengers that were landed at Kuala Lumpur airport and Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on Wednesday after bomb alerts were declared safe, officials said Thursday.
One of these planes, a Boeing 777-300EA, had departed from the British city of Manchester and was bound to Islamabad, while flight PK898 was bound from Lahore to the Malaysian capital. Both the planes were landed, searched and then declared safe. A senior PIA official confirmed the two bomb threats. “We received emails about the presence of bombs on two PIA flights,” the official told AFP, adding “Since the flights had taken off already, the pilots were directed to land at the nearest airport.”
“One flight bound for Manchester landed in Istanbul and the second flight touched down at Kuala Lumpur,” the official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.
The official said no bomb had been found during the search of the aircraft according to the information he had received. PIA’s spokeswoman in Karachi was not available for comment.
