Air France bomb: Kenya confirms explosive device found in toilets of plane carrying 473 people from Mauritius to Paris
Bangla sanglap desk: An Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris has been forced to make an emergency landing in Kenya after a bomb was found in the toilet.
The Boeing 777 had been carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members when pilots requested an emergency landing at a Mombasa airport at 12.30am, a Kenyan police official said Sunday.
Kenyan bomb experts have since confirmed that the suspicious package was a bomb, and at least two passengers are being questioned by authorities.
The bomb was found in the toilet and has been removed to a safe place for detonation, Kenya Airports Authorities said in a statement.
Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery told reporters at Mombasa’s Moi International Airport that Kenyan authorities were working with their French and Mauritian counterparts to determine the nature of the device.
He confirmed that a number of passengers who were aboard the flight were being questioned about the suspect device, but did not say if they were under arrest.
‘We are in touch with Mauritius to know how security screening of passengers was done. A few passengers are being interrogated,’ he said.
The Boeing 777 Air France flight 463 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when the pilots requested an emergency landing at the Moi International Airport at 12.30am, police spokesman Charles Owino said.
‘It requested an emergency landing when a device suspected to be an explosive was discovered in the lavatory,’ Owino said.
The plane was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members on board and had left Mauritius at 9pm, Owino said.
Kenya Airports Authority added that scheduled flights to Mombasa were disrupted during the interval but that normal operations have resumed.
‘The plane just went down slowly, slowly, slowly, so we just realized probably something was wrong,’ said a passenger who identified himself as Benoit Lucchini of Paris. He spoke to journalists after leaving the plane in Mombasa.
‘The personnel of Air France was just great, they were just wonderful. So they keep everybody calm. We did not know what was happening,’ said Lucchini.
‘So we secured the seat belt to land in Mombasa because we thought it was a technical problem but actually it was not a technical problem.
‘It was something in the toilet. Something wrong in the toilet, it could be a bomb.’
