Chennai: Personnel of the various aviation security agencies were on their toes on Wednesday night and heaved a sigh of relief only after the Emirates flight to Dubai, with Chief Minister M K Stalin on board, landed safely as an anonymous e-mail was received at the airport director’s office at around 8 pm saying that powerful bombs had been placed in the aircraft flying to San Francisco and the restroom at the departure lounge of the airport.
Though there are no direct flights to San Francisco from Chennai, the security agencies could not ignore the anonymous email that was the 21st to land at the director’s mail id in the last 20 days because the Chief Minister was flying to Dubai to catch a connecting flight to San Francisco that night.
However, since the authorities did not want to create panic at the airport and all over the State by launching an explicit and obvious search operation, the security personnel made an intensive but discrete search of the airport terminal and also the Emirates flight that landed around 8 pm with the help of bomb detection squads.
Passengers did not take the bustle caused by the huge presence of security personnel at the tarmac and inside the aircraft seriously as they thought that it was a routine check-in view of the Chief Minister travelling by aircraft to Dubai.
The Emirates flight to Dubai took off at 10.16 pm, suffering a delay of 16 minutes, only after the various agencies cleared it by screening the aircraft thoroughly but the search continued on the ground, besides causing turmoil as the authorities were concerned about the mysterious mail that had emanated from an unknown or undecipherable mail id.
Some senior officials were also furious that the past 10 mails from that id had been ignored or taken lightly by the security agencies. So a special team was formed by the airport police, along with the cybercrime branch, to identify the senders of the threat mail immediately and take action against them.
Exactly 40 years ago, in 1984, a devastating bomb explosion ripped through the airport, killing 33 people and injuring 27 others, because the security officials ignored the warning of an anonymous telephone caller, who was making repeated calls and telling them of a bag packed with bombs lying inside the airport building.
