Garuda Indonesia flight GA-405 hit by bomb hoax

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)