A mother caused chaos yesterday when she telephoned the 1Time call centre to tell them there was a bomb on one of their aircraft. The valiant woman didn’t want her daughter to board a flight from Jozi to George, but alas, it was too late, and the aircraft was already in the air by the time the threat was received.

1Time took no chances and immediately notified its pilots, and ordered that all flights on the ground be searched.

At the time, two flights were in the air, including the one from Jozi to George.

When the aircraft eventually landed in George at around 14h00, all hell broke loose.

Officials immediately initiated procedures to search for the bomb.

According to The Star newspaper, perplexed passengers were transferred from the plane back to the terminal building, where a tight-lipped 1Time crew handed them juice and water – a nice touch, considering the circumstances.

The police bomb squad and sniffer dogs were then used to sniff out the bomb, causing flight delays, confused passengers and unhappy staff.

But nothing was found, Western Cape police spokesman Sergeant Nigel Olifant told The Star.

The airline’s chief executive Blacky Komani said the call made to the call centre had been traced back to the mother.

She left a short message. She wanted to speak to the manager and when the call centre agent put her through, she said: “I just wanted to let you know there is a bomb in one of your aircraft.”

After investigation, we found out this was a mother who didn’t want her daughter to fly, so she called… made a hoax bomb scare.

Passengers were obviously not amused:

Staff not saying anything. Plane landed, but captain just told us they received instruction for plane to stop where it did because they needed to do security check. Passengers pretty pissed off that we had to leave all hand luggage.

“Shit, I hope we were not sitting on a bomb the entire flight,” said another female passenger.

Officials wouldn’t give details on why the woman made the hoax call, and they also didn’t seem to know what would happen next. Western Cape police said they’re referring the matter to Gauteng police because the mother’s call had been made from Jozi.

[Sources: IOL, CityPress]