There will be flights again from Eindhoven Airport. No bomb was found on the plane that was searched after a bomb threat. The question is whether all flights can continue on Friday evening. This is partly due to the availability of personnel. A lot of air traffic to and from Eindhoven Airport was diverted or delayed for hours.
The bomb threat came in on Friday afternoon when the plane was en route from Prague to Eindhoven. It is not known who was behind the report. The passengers of the aircraft are accommodated in the terminal of the airbase.
The Defense Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service and a sniffer dog from the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, among others, were involved in the search of the aircraft. The luggage and passengers have also been checked.
Bomb threat
The Marechaussee says that no one has been arrested so far. The bomb threat came in via the police, who forwarded the report to the Marechaussee because the target was an airport.
“The report was about an aircraft that would land at Eindhoven Airport,” a spokesman for the Marechaussee explains. Where exactly the report came from and who is behind it is still being investigated, the spokesman said further.
“Mood was fine on the plane”
The Transavia aircraft, a Boeing 737 with flight number HV5234, landed in Eindhoven at 2:53 pm and came from Prague. The plane also had Eindhoven as its actual destination. The plane took off with 141 passengers and six crew members.
A passenger, who was still on the plane around 4:30 in the afternoon, told Omroep Brabant that the bomb threat came from Prague. “We are constantly getting updates here in the aircraft. The staff are doing a fantastic job. There is actually nothing wrong. The mood is great,” said the passenger. Not much later, people were slowly allowed off the plane and went to the terminal.
The plane is still grounded at the hangars of the military airbase. That’s protocol in case of suspicious situations. Although the aircraft is not on a platform at Eindhoven Airport itself, the situation did have consequences for air traffic at the commercial airport.
Flights diverted
Several flights that were supposed to land at Eindhoven Airport were immediately diverted to other airports, including Schiphol, Maastricht and Brussels. Air traffic was halted for a long time, but air traffic was resumed around a quarter past seven.
It is still unclear whether all flights can take place due to staff availability. Information about this can be found at the website from the airport.