The woman was sitting on the ground, asking staff to solve the problem./ Photo via CCTV
A woman has been arrested and detained for five days after she delayed her flight by saying there was a bomb on the plane in China’s south Nanning Wuxu International Airport. She apparently made the claims because she had bought her flight ticket on the wrong date and wanted to prevent the plane from taking off.
“I wanted them (flight attendants) to find a seat on a flight on Friday for me. So I said there was a bomb on the plane, trying to prevent it from taking off and give them some time to solve the problem.” said the woman whose surname is Na.
It turns out that Na wrongly bought the flight ticket on August 11, when she wanted to go to from China’s northeast Harbin to Nanjing on August 10. When she arrived at the airport, she was angry, crying and sitting on the ground, and wanted staff in the airport to “solve the problem”, so she claimed there was a bomb on the plane.
Hearing Na’s claim, the scared staff quickly contacted the police and the plane received a clearance inspection as soon as possible.
After the inspection, the airport ensured that there was no bomb on the plane, then 172 passengers, who were already on-board previously, had to get out of the plane and re-board. Until then, the plane had been delayed for more than two hours.
Na was then arrested and detained for five days for disturbing public order and for making false claims, according to local police.
Similar cases can be found in other countries. On April, a 41-year-old Singaporean man was arrested for saying there was a bomb on board a flight from Singapore to Thailand, which resulted in the plane returning to Changi Airport in Singapore. In March, a Singapore Airlines flight from Taipei to Singapore was also delayed because a woman called the police, claiming there was a bomb on Flight SQ879.
In March 2015, an Italian man was also arrested for the same kind of behavior for he was running late, causing a two and a half hour delay of the plane.
