Hyderabad: A young girl’s remark about a bomb stirred panic and a security scare on an IndiGo flight at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Shamshabad on Saturday, October 17.
RGIA police told Siasat.com that the child, around the age of 12, had uttered the word bomb on the plane, after which a security operation was carried out to check the aircraft. Police said everything was clear.
According to the police, over 50 students from Hyderabad were on board the plane, which was bringing them back from a tour.
The aircraft was moved to an isolation bay soon after landing at Hyderabad, and all passengers were taken off safely. However, the situation remained tense at the Hyderabad airport until the all clear.
Spate of hoax threats at Hyderabad airport
The scare comes after a series of bomb threats to flights and the airport over the past year, most of which turned out to be hoaxes.
On Wednesday, February 11, the airport received an email warning of a blast timed to the arrival of a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain. The flight had already landed by the time the email was received. Nothing suspicious was found and police registered a case.
On Saturday, March 7, a threat email delayed a Singapore-bound flight by nearly 13 hours before it was declared a hoax. Police registered a case in that incident too.
On Monday, April 27, a threat email to the second terminal, the second in a week, led the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), a bomb disposal squad and a dog squad to search the premises. Nothing suspicious was found, and flight operations remained largely unaffected.
On Friday, May 15, an email sent to Lufthansa’s customer support claimed an explosive device had been planted on flight LH-754 from Frankfurt. Bomb disposal teams and airport security personnel combed through the aircraft. The next day, Saturday, May 16, an email to the airport’s customer care claimed a bomb was on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight KL 873 from Amsterdam. The aircraft landed safely and was moved to an isolation bay for inspection.
On Sunday night, July 12, unconfirmed reports claimed a bomb threat had triggered an emergency response for a Riyadh-Hyderabad flight. An RGIA official told Siasat.com that there was no bomb threat and that the reports were false.
The threats go back to last year. On May 12, 2025, a note scribbled on tissue paper, claiming a bomb had been planted and could go off at any moment, was found in the washroom of an Air India flight to RGIA. No explosives were found. Three days earlier, the airport had received an email allegedly sent by a Pakistan-based sleeper cell warning of a blast, which was also declared a hoax.
In November 2025, a British Airways flight from London carrying 167 people landed at RGIA after a threat email, and an IndiGo flight from Jeddah was diverted to Mumbai after an email claimed a “human bomb” was on board. In December 2025, an IndiGo flight from Madina to Hyderabad was diverted to Ahmedabad after a similar email.
