Bomb hoax on Sri Lankan flight

A London bound Sri Lankan airline Airbus A-340 landed in Male in Maldives today afternoon after a British national raised a bomb alert, but officials later found that the bomb threat was a hoax, reports said.

A London bound Sri Lankan airline Airbus A-340 landed in Male in Maldives on Monday afternoon after a British national raised a bomb alert. But officials later found that the bomb threat was a hoax, reports said.

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According to the Male based Haveeru online, a British citizen, identified as Clement Paul, sounded the false alarm, which prompted the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) to evacuate transit passengers from Colombo and search the A-340 aircraft scheduled to fly to London at 1.45pm.

After a thorough search, the aircraft with 199 passengers took off for London.

MNDF Spokesperson Major Abdul Raheem said the British national was taken into custody for further investigation. “We cleared the aircraft for take off after a bomb or any other explosive was not found from the aircraft,” he told Haveeru online.