Garuda Indonesia flight GA-405 hit by bomb hoax

JAKARTA (JP): A plane serving national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia's domestic route from Bali to Jakarta on Wednesday received a bomb threat which turned out to be a hoax, a Garuda official said.

Garuda Indonesia's spokesman Pujobroto said the plane landed safely at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at 10:28 a.m. after departing from Denpasar at 9:40 a.m.

He said that the bomb threat was discovered by one of the passengers aboard flight GA-405, identified as Nigel Vickers, who read a note, written in Indonesian, on the in-flight magazine: Hati-hati di bawah kursi anda ada bom yang akan meledak bila anda bergerak (Be careful there is a bomb under your seat which will explode if you move).

"The passenger notified a member of the cabin crew 15 minutes after the plane took off from Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali," Pujobroto said in a statement.

One of the pilots on the flight, Capt. Agus Kresna Bahagia, contacted Garuda's nearest office in Surabaya for coordination, he said.

The office instructed the plane, which carried 104 passengers and 16 crew members, to apply the standard operating procedure and continue on to Jakarta.

It was unclear whether other passengers aboard the flight were informed about the threat.

When asked about the situation when the plane landed at Soekarno-Hatta, airport spokesman Tom Syafril said that the evacuation of passengers went smoothly and crew members managed to control the situation and keep the passengers calm.

"No one was hurt and none of the passengers seemed to be in a panic," he said.

Minutes after the plane landed, the bomb squad from the National Police arrived at the airport and began to comb the DC- 10-30 plane.

The squad, however, found nothing suspicious and declared that the message was a hoax.

The police also said that the plane did not have to be taken out of service because the bomb hoax posed no threat to safety.

The plane returned to Denpasar at 5:50 p.m. with flight number GA-412.

Separately, Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman told reporters on Wednesday that the message was written merely as a joke, having no serious purpose and posing no threat.

He also confirmed that no arrests had been made in the incident.

When asked about any progress toward locating suspects in the bomb explosion on Jl. H. Agus Salim in the Sabang area of Central Jakarta on Jan. 2, Noegroho said that police had already identified the suspects and were still collecting evidence and data.

"We know who was behind the bombing and we're working on collecting data and evidence to arrest the suspects," Noegroho said.

He also strongly dismissed speculation that the police had arrested two members of the Armed Forces suspected of involvement in the explosion.

"They are not suspects. We asked them for information in relation to the incident," he added. (emf/41)