Bomb scare airliner lands at Shannon
28/09/2004 - 17:40:51The Greek airliner which was diverted to Shannon Airport after a bomb scare has landed.
As the aircraft prepared to land, a massive security operation swung into action at Shannon.
A Garda spokesman said: “All available personnel are at the airport at the moment. All other inbound flights have been diverted from Shannon.”
Emergency personnel, an army bomb disposal team and local hospitals have all been put on standby under the airport’s emergency plan, he added.
Cecil McDonagh, operations manager at Shannon, said: "The report that we were given was that there was a possible bomb on board.
French air traffic controllers alerted Irish authorities at around 3pm that a suspect package was on board the flight to JFK.
Mr McDonagh added the plane continued westward through Irish airspace before the pilot decided to make the emergency landing.
Mr McDonagh said: "The plane landed just two minutes before the hour at 16.58 and the matter is now in the hands of the airport authorities.''
He said passengers were being evacuated and a full search would now be carried out with stringent security measures in place.
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