ROME: An American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi was diverted to Rome on Sunday afternoon following an \u201calleged bomb scare,\u201d an Italian airport spokesman said.
\nThe US-based carrier gave no details on the nature of what it called a \u201cpossible security concern\u201d on the flight carrying 199 passengers plus crew, which was escorted by two Italian fighter jets before landing.
\n\u201cThe flight landed safely at FCO (Rome), and law enforcement inspected and cleared the aircraft to re-depart,\u201d American Airlines said in a statement.
\nMahesh Kumar, an IT consultant aboard the flight, said the pilot announced the diversion to Rome due to \u201csecurity reasons\u201d about three hours before landing.
\n\u201cEveryone was afraid. Everyone was staying quiet and obeying the orders,\u201d the 55-year-old from Texas told AFP.
\n\u201cThey asked us to sit down and not to roam around while the fighter jets were near us,\u201d Kumar said, adding that Italian police escorted passengers for a security screening in the airport when they landed.<\/p>\n
The flight had taken off from New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday at around 8:11 p.m. local time (01:11 GMT Sunday), according to flight tracker FlightAware.
\nIt turned around sharply while flying over the Caspian Sea, the website showed.
\nAn American Airlines official said the aircraft landed in Rome due to Indian protocol requirements.
\n\u201cThe possible issue was determined to be non-credible, but per DEL Airport protocol, an inspection was required before landing at DEL,\u201d the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
\n\u201cThe flight will stay in FCO overnight to allow for required crew rest before continuing to DEL as soon as possible tomorrow.\u201d
\nRome airport operations were not affected by the incident, an Italian airport spokesman said.
\nThe US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the plane had landed safely \u201cafter the crew reported a security issue.\u201d
\nAmerican Airlines, one of the largest US air carriers, is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.
\nIts international operations serve more than 60 countries, according to the airline\u2019s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROME: An American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi was diverted to Rome on Sunday afternoon following an \u201calleged bomb scare,\u201d an Italian airport spokesman said. The US-based carrier gave no details on the nature of what it called a \u201cpossible security concern\u201d on the flight carrying 199 passengers plus crew, which was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77511,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77501\/revisions\/77511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}