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A passenger reportedly made a bomb threat before a Jet2 plane took off for Stansted, causing the flight to be evacuated.
Flight LS1536 was due to take off from Tenerife South airport on Friday, 25 September at 11.20am for a four-hour flight to London.
The Boeing 737 was delayed by more than two hours after the incident, Tenerife news site Atlántico Hoy reported, citing sources from Spain’s national police, the Guardia Civil.
Police evacuated the aircraft as a precaution and carried out checks on both the plane and the luggage, according to the site. Passengers are often evacuated from planes as a precautionary protocol when security threats are made on flights.
After the checks were complete, passengers were able to re-board the plane and the flight took off just after 2pm.
The flight landed at Stansted airport at 5.49pm, two hours and nine minutes behind schedule.
The airline said that passengers had to leave the plane following an “incident”, but did not confirm that a bomb threat was posed.
A spokesperson for Jet2 told The Independent: “We can confirm that customers were asked to disembark a flight at Tenerife South airport on Friday 25 September following an incident involving a passenger on board.
“Customers subsequently reboarded and the flight landed at London Stansted as planned.
“We would like to apologise to everyone onboard for the delay and any inconvenience caused.”
It is unclear what happened to the passenger who made the alleged threat. The Independent has contacted the Guardia Civil and Spain’s airport group, Aena, for comment.
The incident comes a day after a Ryanair flight was forced to divert back to Porto after a false security report raised concerns among the crew.
Flight FR7073 took off from Francisco Sá Carneiro airport in Porto at 10.55pm on Tuesday, 22 September, for a two-hour journey to Dublin, Ireland.
After flying north towards northern Spain, the Boeing 737 made a U-turn just short of the Portuguese-Spanish border and diverted back towards Porto.
The captain transmitted squawk code 7500 into the transponder, a universal aviation code indicating a hijack attempt or an unlawful intrusion into the flight deck.
While Ryanair did not specify what caused the squawk code to be transmitted, the airline said it returned to Porto due to a “false security report”.
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