Japanese flight makes emergency landing after bomb threat

A Jetstar Japan aircraft is seen after making an emergency landing at Central Japan International Airport Saturday after officials received a bomb threat. Photo by Jiji Press/EPA-EFE

Flight 501 touched down safely just after 7:30 a.m. local time. The Airbus A320 was originally scheduled to fly from Tokyo’s Narita Airport to Fukuoka Airport in southwestern Japan.

Emergency vehicles met the plane on the airport’s single runway, which was closed for five hours, causing around 60 flights to be canceled. Around another 30 were delayed.

Five of the flight’s 136 passengers suffered minor injuries using the plane’s inflatable slide. The six crew members were unhurt and no one was taken to the hospital, officials said.

A subsequent search of the aircraft failed to turn up any explosive device.

The bomb threat was received by phone at Narita Airport at 6:18 a.m. The caller told the airline employee a bomb was planted on the flight and then demanded to speak with a superior. The airport employee said the caller did not speak Japanese.

Officials said later that it appeared the call originated in Germany.

The airline was made aware of the threat around 30 minutes after the call, by which time the plane had already departed. It then informed the plane’s two pilots, directing them to make the emergency landing.

One passenger said an inflight announcement advised people of the pending emergency landing, but not of the reason for it. It was only once the plane was on the ground that a second announcement detailed the bomb threat, Kyodo News reported.

Jetstar Japan operates 16 domestic and one international route, using a fleet of Airbus A320 and Boeing 787 aircraft.