169 passengers evacuated from Coimbatore-Chennai flight after crew finds 'hijack threat' paper

COIMBATORE: All 169 passengers, including minister R Sakkarapani and Madras high court judge justice GK Ilanthiraiyan, of a Coimbatore-Chennai flight were evacuated from the flight at the city airport after a crew member found a piece of paper inside the aircraft purportedly with a message of ‘hijack threat' on Sunday.

The crew member of the IndiGo flight found the paper while checking for any leftover articles of the passengers after the flight landed at the airport around 3.20pm from Chennai and passengers were deboarded.

On the return journey, the flight was to take off around 4pm with 169 passengers. The paper was immediately taken to the security personnel at the airport. Meanwhile, passengers to Chennai cleared security checks and boarded the flight.

But the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials stopped the flight. All the passengers were evacuated from the flight. The CISF personnel conducted a thorough search inside the flight and confirmed that there were no explosive materials.

Later, all the passengers were reboarded onto the flight, which took off around 5.30pm.

According to sources, the following was written in English on the paper: "My name Mohammed Atta, Unscheduled last minute 23 C, Be Thankful For Alla, I didn't hijack your plane, Alla Mi Alla Miqul, Alla is my Rahhmaan, Rahman Rahimi, Alla Hu Akbar, I died, I revived from the whole tower, hijackers Khalo Almidhar, tomorrow you all die." A human face was also drawn on the piece of paper.

IndiGo Airline authorities lodged a complaint with the Peelamedu police on Sunday night. Police and CISF officials are trying to find the person who left the paper inside the flight. Further investigation is ongoing.