Close to 80 Flights Receive Bomb Threats in 6 Days, DGCA Transferred. Will This Stop the Threats?

With close to 80 flights receiving bomb threats in just 6 days, 26 flights including 6 Indigo flights receiving threats in just the past 4 hours, heads have rolled. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Vikram Dev Dutt has been transferred to the Ministry of Coal as Secretary, in the wake of the surge in bomb threats to Indian carriers.

Alarmed by the situation, officials from aviation safety body Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) met the CEOs of the airlines in New Delhi.

Officials said that at the meeting, held at the civil aviation ministry’s office in Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan, the CEOs were asked to follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) for tackling the threats, which have been causing inconvenience to passengers and losses to carriers. They were also asked to keep all stakeholders informed about the threats and the action being taken.

Over 30 bomb threats were made against flights operated by Air India, Indigo, Vistara, Spicejet, Akasa Air and Alliance Air yesterday alone. Officials said, in the investigation so far, they have found that the IP or internet protocol addresses from which some of the threats were issued this week were from London, Germany, Canada and the US. They did not, however, rule out the use of VPNs or virtual private networks by the people who made the threats to hide their actual locations, NDTV reported.

The BCAS and aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are also expected to issue fresh guidelines for airlines to deal with bomb threats.

The recent flurry of hoax calls and threats made through social media began on Monday and the threats have continued every day since then, causing several flights to be diverted or delayed.

A 17-year-old boy was taken into custody by the Mumbai Police on Wednesday for issuing threats to four flights on Monday, including three on international routes. Officials had said the teenager wanted to frame one of his friends, with whom he had a dispute over money, media reports said.

Over a dozen first information reports (FIRs) have been registered by the Mumbai Police and the Delhi Police in connection with the threats.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu had said on Thursday that initial investigations do not point to a conspiracy and that most of the calls had been “made by minors and pranksters”