Two Paris bound Air France flights from the United States were diverted Tuesday night due to bomb threats.
Both flights – an Airbus A380 and a Boeing 777 – landed safely.
Air France Flight 65 a 500-seat A380 was operating from Los Angeles to Paris and was diverted to Salt Lake City after the threat was received according to a US government spokesman.
Shortly afterwards, Air France Flight 55 a Boeing 777 with 298 passengers a crew operating from Washington’s Dulles International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia also due to a similar bomb threat.
Salt Lake City FBI Special Agent Todd Palmer told CNN that “several law enforcement agencies are working to determine the nature of the threats which caused the aircraft to divert.”
However no US military aircraft were scrambled.
CNN’s national security analysts Juliette Kayyem said that “diversion of flights is the most draconian response to a bomb threat.”
“I think right now we take this seriously until we hear some explanation to the validity of the bomb threat,” Ms Kayyem said.
However one safety analyst who spoke to AirlineRatings.com warned that this could be new phase in the terrorism war by ISIS.
“They [ISIS] could cripple aviation with hundreds of bomb threats,” the analyst warned.
Separately Russia has said that a bomb brought down Metrojet Flight 7K-9268 from Sharm el Sheikh to St. Petersburg (Russia) which crashed on Saturday October 31 killing all 224 on board.
