An Air France flight traveling from Mauritius to Paris made an emergency landing in Kenya due to a suspicious device that was found in a plane lavatory. But it turned out to be a fake, the airline’s CEO confirmed, calling the device a “false alarm.” Turns out the supposed bomb was nothing but cardboard, paper with a household timer strapped on top. “This object did not contain explosives,” Air France chief Frederic Gagey said at a news conference.
After AF463, with 459 passengers and 14 crew members, made the emergency landing in Mombasa, the Kenyan Airport Authority posted a statement on Facebook that described the suspicious package as a bomb, saying authorities had foiled “a bombing attempt” and that it had “been taken to safe destination for detonation.” Authorities later edited the post to describe as a “suspicious object” what had once been a bomb.
One passenger on the plane told journalists that the emergency landing was calm as crew told passengers the plane had been diverted due to a technical problem. “The plane just went down, slowly, slowly, slowly, so we just realized probably something was wrong,” he said. “But the personnel of Air France were just great, just wonderful. So they keep everybody calm.”
