Second bomb threat in 10 days: IndiGo flight to Dammam, Saudi, lands in Ahmedabad

Ten days after a mid-air bomb scare forced a passenger aircraft flying on the India-Saudi Arabia route to land in Ahmedabad, an almost identical alert triggered a similar emergency at the airport on Thursday (September 10) evening.

IndiGo Airlines flight 6E 97 flying from Lucknow to Dammam in Saudi Arabia was diverted to Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport after a bomb threat, police said. The flight, which took off from Lucknow at 4 pm, landed in Ahmedabad at 5.43 pm.

On August 31 evening, an Air India Express flight from Dammam to Delhi had made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad after a piece of tissue with the word “bomb” written on it was discovered in a lavatory of the aircraft. On Thursday too, pilots of the Lucknow-Dammam flight took the decision to divert to Ahmedabad after crew on the aircraft found a tissue paper with “bomb” written on it, Inspector A D Chavda of the Airport Police told The Indian Express.

The aircraft, which had 107 passengers and six crew members on board, landed safely and were sequestered at Terminal 2 of the airport. The aircraft was on the tarmac at the time of reporting. “Checking of the plane by the Crime Branch, SOG (Special Operations Group), the local police and the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) is ongoing,” Inspector Chavda said.

“No suspicious object has been found on board yet,” he said. The incident and follow-up actions on August 31 were very similar. All the passengers on the AI Express flight too had been taken off and questioned, police had said.

“A tissue paper was found in the lavatory with “bomb” written on it. The flight made an emergency landing at Ahmedabad airport,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 4) Atul Bansal had said on August 31. There were 32 passengers on board that aircraft.

“All of them have been deboarded and their questioning is being done. Security agencies are also checking the plane. Once the checking is over, an offence will be registered,” , Bansal had said. A PTI report had quoted an Air India Express spokesperson as saying on August 31 that the aircraft had been diverted to Ahmedabad following a “specific bomb threat”, and that all passengers had disembarked safely.

The report had quoted police as saying security agencies had checked the aircraft thoroughly and found nothing suspicious. “One of our flights from Dammam to Delhi was diverted to Ahmedabad as a precaution and in keeping with security protocols after being notified of a specific bomb threat,” the spokesperson said, according to PTI.

The Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) had been alerted, and all security procedures had been initiated on that occasion. A BTAC is constituted at each airport to assess the gravity of a bomb threat call. Describing the role of the BTAC, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had told Lok Sabha in February 2016: “As per the decision of airport-specific BTAC, action is taken to offload passengers with their cabin baggage, check-in baggage, cargo, catering, etc.

“It is followed by re-screening of the passengers and their carry-on items, hold baggage, cargo, catering items, and search of empty aircraft by airlines, engineering and security staff before permitting to send the aircraft for flight operation,” the government had said in response to a question on ‘Security Threats on Flights’.

Brendan Dabhi works with The Indian Express, focusing his comprehensive reporting primarily on Gujarat. He covers the region's most critical social, legal, and administrative sectors, notably specializing at the intersection of health, social justice, and disasters.

Expertise Health and Public Policy: He has deep expertise in healthcare issues, including rare diseases, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), the complex logistics of organ transplants, and public health challenges like drug-resistant TB and heat health surveillance.

His on-ground reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic and Mucormycosis was critical in exposing healthcare challenges faced by marginalized communities in Gujarat. Social Justice and Legal Administration: He reports on the functioning of the legal and police system, including the impact of judicial philosophy, forensics and crucial administrative reforms (.

He covers major surveillance and crackdown exercises by the Gujarat police and security on the international border. Disaster and Crisis Management: His work closely tracks how government and civic bodies respond to large-scale crises, providing essential coverage on the human and administrative fallout of disasters including cyclones, floods, conflict, major fires and reported extensively on the AI 171 crash in Ahmedabad.

Civic Infrastructure and Governance: Provides timely reports on critical civic failures, including large scale infrastructure projects by the railways and civic bodies, as well as the enforcement of municipal regulations and their impact on residents and heritage.

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