KATHMANDU, Oct 28: The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has confirmed that no suspicious objects were found on the Air India plane returning to Delhi after Indian authorities warned that the flight might be carrying a bomb.
Following a bomb hoax regarding flight AI 216, which landed at 2:41 PM on Monday at the Tribhuvan International Airport, teams from Nepal Police and the Nepali Army conducted thorough security checks. The flight, which arrived from Delhi carrying 158 passengers, including 55 Nepalis, was grounded for extensive checks after Air India’s Delhi office reported a possible bomb threat. A nearby Himalayan Airlines flight was also moved as a precaution.
According to CAAN Information Officer Gyanendra Bhul, the Integrated Operations Control Center (IOCC) of India informed the authorities about the bomb threat after passengers had begun boarding the same plane for its return flight to Delhi. All passengers were promptly disembarked and screened, while trained bomb-detection dogs conducted a comprehensive search of the aircraft. Not a single suspicious object was found during the inspection.
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“Following the protocol, we had to conduct a search operation, but no dangerous objects were discovered during the security checks,” Bhul told Republica.
Nepali Army Spokesperson Brigadier General Gaurav Kumar KC also confirmed that no suspicious objects were found on the plane. “The disposal team of the Nepali Army's standby unit stationed at the airport found nothing suspicious during the search,” he said.
Last week, a similar bomb hoax occurred on a Vistara Airways flight from Delhi, but again, no suspicious object was found. Recently, repeated false threats targeting Indian flights have caused alarm among passengers. According to the Indian media, these threats are suspected to be linked to the Khalistani movement. Such incidents have heightened tension in Indian aviation services.
Bhul further stated that the threats seem to be aimed at undermining public confidence in Indian airline operators rather than Nepal's airports. “Both flights that received bomb threats in the last seven days were operated by Indian airlines,” he told Republica. “If the threats were aimed at raising concerns about the TIA, CAAN would have been contacted directly instead of the IOCC.”
He explained that the search operations were conducted in Nepal instead of India because the threat calls were received only after the flights entered the Nepali airspace. “In the Vistara Airways case, the bomb threat came an hour after departure from Delhi,” Bhul said. “For the Air India flight, the threat was received after it had already landed at the TIA.”
