EgyptAir plane continues flight to China following bomb threat
An EgyptAir aircraft that made an emergency landing in Uzbekistan following a bomb threat has resumed its flight to Beijing, Egyptian officials said.
They say no bomb was found after the Airbus A-330-220 and its passengers were searched and the plane took off for the Chinese capital four hours after it landed on Wednesday at the airport in the town of Urgench, about 600 miles west of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.
According to the officials, an anonymous caller telephoned security agents at the Cairo airport to say a bomb was on board the flight. The agents immediately contacted the aircraft and ordered it to land at the nearest airport, they said.
An EgyptAir plane en route from Cairo to Beijing was forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan following a bomb threat, Egyptians officials said.
The passengers were evacuated safely and the aircraft was being searched.
The plane, an Airbus A-330-220 with 135 passengers and crew on board, landed in Uzbekistan three hours after it took off from the Egyptian capital at around 11.30pm local time on Tuesday.
The plane landed at the airport in the town of Urgench, about 600 miles (840km) west of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.
The officials said an anonymous caller telephoned security agents at Cairo airport to say there was a bomb on board the plane.
In Russia, the news agency RIA Novosti quoted unnamed officials as saying the airport had been closed following the EgyptAir plane's emergency landing.
The incident came nearly three weeks after an EgyptAir flight crashed in the Mediterranean Sea as it was approaching the Egyptian coast while en route to Cairo from Paris.
All 66 people on board were killed and the search for the plane's flight and data recorders, the so-called black boxes is still under way.
