Terrorism alarm in the skies of Sardinia: Emirates plane returns to Athens
Following the checks, no “suspect” passengers were identified on board the flight
A terrorism alarm went off yesterday evening in the skies of Sardinia.
An Emirates plane , which took off from Athens and headed for New York, had to return to the Hellenic airport after reporting a "suspect" on board.
The emergency began when the Italian authorities received the communication from the Greek colleagues: the Boeing 777 with 228 passengers and 18 crew members on board, while it was over Sardinia, was the subject of a terrorism alert. The security protocols in half of Europe were activated, the men of the Brindisi Area Control Center entered into action and sent the note to the French as flight EK 209 was heading towards Corsica.
From Marseille , however, the request to enter national airspace was denied . At that point the Boeing flew several flyovers between Olbia and Alghero , remaining in the northern part of Sardinia and finally headed south, over the Mediterranean, to return back to the Athens airport landing at 22.07 local time. During the descent it was also flanked by two F16 fighters of the Air Force of Greece.
Only later was it clarified that the pilots had not raised any alarms, in particular the 7500, which corresponds to illegal acts on board. From the reconstruction carried out, an anonymous phone call would have reached the American 007 who transmitted the alarm, as a precaution, to Greek officials. The report concerned two Emirates flights: one to Dubai, which was checked, the other to New York, but the latter had already departed and hence the decision to bring it back.
All passengers were inspected, including a man who was suspicious, but nothing out of the ordinary was found.
The plane will restart today.
(Unioneonline / ss)
