An airline passenger in India has been arrested on suspicion of making a bomb threat against the low-cost carrier Spicejet as part of a desperate attempt to get back his lost wallet.
Shreyansh Chamaria had flown with Spicejet from Delhi to Bengaluru on December 26, but just as he was about to leave the airport, he realised he had left his wallet onboard the aircraft.
Chamaria immediately contacted the Spicejet customer service telephone line, hoping that the agent would be able to quickly relay a message to the cabin crew on the plane so that they could retrieve his wallet and return it to him before he left the airport.
But as the call dragged on, Chamaria allegedly didn’t feel like his request was being taken seriously, so, the New India Express reports, he claimed there was a bomb in the wallet.
The threat did, at least, get the cabin crew to go hunting for the wallet without delay. It also got the attention of the airport police, who were forced to set up a Special Bomb Detection Assessment Committee, prompting a full-scale security response.
In the end, the threat was deemed a hoax, and officers quickly tracked down Chamaria, who was still hanging around the Spicejet counter in the terminal. Chamaria was arrested and has been charged with public mischief and criminal intimidation.
Earlier this year, a man called in a bomb threat against a JetBlue plane flying to Las Vegas because he turned up late at the gate and missed the flight. Upset with the fact that not only had he missed the flight but that his luggage was still onboard, the man claimed there was a bomb in his bag.
The threat was taken so seriously that the aircraft was evacuated shortly after it landed in Las Vegas, and the all-clear was only given more than two hours later after sniffer dogs were sent onboard the plane.
In 2021, a woman also claimed there was a bomb in her luggage on a JetBlue flight from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport after she got to the gate only to find the plane already taxiing for takeoff. The woman hoped the threat would get the plane to return to the gate.
