Kenya: Air France flight makes an emergency landing over bomb scare

An Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris was forced to make an emergency landing in Kenya after a passenger found a suspected bomb in the toilet. Kenyan authorities have now retracted an earlier statement which said that it was an explosive device, and now claim that it was a 'dummy bomb'. The Boeing 777 was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members when pilots requested an emergency landing at a Mombasa airport at 12.30am . The Kenyan Airport Authority had previously published a statement on social media confirming that the device was a bomb, but later edited the post to only confirm a 'suspicious object'.

A Kenyan police official said during the flight a passenger noticed something in a lavatory that looked like 'a stopwatch mounted on a box.' The passenger reported the device to the cabin crew, who informed the pilots, leading to an emergency landing at the airport in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. 
Six people are being questioned by authorities, one of them being the man who reported the package.

Kenyan police spokesman Charles Owino said: ‘The plane requested an emergency landing after a device suspected to be a bomb was discovered in the lavatory. An emergency landing was prepared and it landed safely and all passengers evacuated. ‘Bomb experts from the Navy and the criminal investigations department were called in, and took the device.’ Mr Owino said it was a ‘dummy bomb’ designed to create fear on the plane.

Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery told reporters at Mombasa's Moi International Airport that Kenyan authorities were working with their French and Mauritian counterparts to determine the nature of the device. He confirmed that a number of passengers who were aboard the flight were being questioned about the suspect device, but did not say if they were under arrest. 'We are in touch with Mauritius to know how security screening of passengers was done

A few passengers are being interrogated,' he said. The Boeing 777 Air France flight 463 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when the pilots requested an emergency landing at the Moi International Airport at 12.30am, police spokesman Charles Owino said. 'It requested an emergency landing when a device suspected to be an explosive was discovered in the lavatory,' Owino said. The plane was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members on board and had left Mauritius at 9pm, Owino said.

 Kenya Airports Authority added that scheduled flights to Mombasa were disrupted during the interval but that normal operations have resumed. 'The plane just went down slowly, slowly, slowly, so we just realized probably something was wrong,' said a passenger who identified himself as Benoit Lucchini of Paris. He spoke to journalists after leaving the plane in Mombasa. 'The personnel of Air France was just great, they were just wonderful. So they keep everybody calm. We did not know what was happening,' said Lucchini. 'So we secured the seat belt to land in Mombasa because we thought it was a technical problem but actually it was not a technical problem. 'It was something in the toilet. Something wrong in the toilet, it could be a bomb.'