A Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight was delayed due to a bomb threat that later turned out to be a hoax. According to flight tracking website Flightaware.com, Flight SQ879 was travelling from Taipei to Singapore.
The website showed that the flight departed from Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport at 5.45 pm on Friday and arrived half an hour later than scheduled at about 10.35 pm in Singapore.
The hoax report was confirmed by an SIA spokesperson and said that the aircraft "landed uneventfully" at Singapore's Changi Airport. However, he did not reveal any further details.
Taiwanese media reports said that a woman called the Taipei police hotline from a public payphone and informed that there was a bomb on SQ879.
United Daily News reported that the SIA flight was scheduled to take off at 5.35 pm and it was already taxiing on the runway when the incident took place. Soon after the report, the authorities started the investigation and determined that the bomb threat was a hoax. The flight eventually took off at 6.01 pm.
The report added that the Taipei police are still investigating the incident.
Last year in December, a Jetstarflight 3K161 from Singapore bound for Darwin, Australia was forced to return to Changi Airport after a passenger heard 'bomb'. The incident had started between two male passengers when one of them grabbed the other's phone as he was talking while the plane was taxying towards the runway.
