A BRITISH Airways flight evacuated due to a “direct security threat” was cleared to leave Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport after passengers and the plane were searched by armed police.
Flight number BA0303, which was bound for London Heathrow, was held on the tarmac and surrounded by police and fire vehicles at around 8am yesterday.
British Airways said: “The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority. Additional security checks are being carried out as a precaution. We would never operate a flight unless it is safe to do so.”
At around 11.10am, a spokeswoman for the airline confirmed the flight had taken off. She did not reveal the nature of the alleged threat.
Passenger James Anderson, 20, tweeted a snap of the plane and security services. He posted: “On British Airways flight BA0303, currently being held on tarmac at Paris due to security threat, surrounded by police and fire vehicles.”
He added: “Apparently an individual has made a direct threat to this aircraft. We will all be led off the aircraft and baggage searched in due course.”
He then posted: “Everybody’s been individually searched by armed officers and given all clear. Now hold luggage being searched by dogs.”
Anderson later tweeted: “Pilot: ‘Aircraft has been deemed absolutely safe. Authorities are satisfied with the search. We will continue to Heathrow’.”
And: “Our pilot was an absolute credit to @British_Airways. Extremely calm and composed, handled the situation wonderfully.”
The alert came amid heightened tensions in the UK in the wake of the failed bomb plot on the London underground.
France has been hard hit by terror attacks in recent years, with 130 people killed in the Paris attacks in November 2015, and 84 in the Nice attacks in July last year.
There have been a number of smaller attacks, while EgyptAir flight MS804 which crashed into the Mediterranean in May 2016, possibly due to an explosion, also took off from Charles de Gaulle.
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