Gordon Deegan
Shannon gardaí were last night continuing to interview a 19-year-old German student in connection with a bomb scare which caused a Delta Airlines flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta to divert to Shannon Airport on Sunday.
The man, who was travelling by himself on the diverted flight, was arrested by gardaí shortly after 12.15 p.m. yesterday, 45 minutes before the flight was due to resume its journey to Atlanta.
The student at Tampa University in Florida had already checked in to continue the flight to Atlanta when gardaí arrested him at the airport.
The 19-year-old was arrested on suspicion of communicating a false message, thereby endangering an aircraft, under Section 3 of the Air Navigation and Transport Act, 1975.
People found guilty of an offence under Section 3 are liable to a life sentence if convicted in the Circuit Court.
The arrest was made at the end of an exhaustive investigation by gardaí where each passenger on board the flight was interviewed and fingerprinted over a six-hour period.
The aircraft was diverted after a note stating there was a bomb on board was discovered in one of the toilets.
According to Insp Tom Kennedy, of Shannon Garda station, gardaí were last night awaiting the outcome of forensic tests. The paper on which the message was written was being checked for fingerprints yesterday by the Garda technical bureau. Insp Kennedy said the German embassy in Dublin had been informed of the student's arrest.
The aircraft in which the 134 passengers were travelling was declared safe by gardaí on Sunday night.
However, its departure was delayed for almost two hours yesterday due to technical problems. It eventually left at 2.50 p.m.
Speaking before their departure, passengers said everyone had remained calm when told of the bomb threat on Sunday. They praised the way Delta cabin crew handled the situation.
"The cabin crew did an awesome job. I was pretty relaxed, I don't think anyone was panicking," said Mr Will Knieper, a passenger from Atlanta, Georgia.
Ms Jennifer Houlihan, also from Atlanta, said: "It was a little scary. At first the pilot said that it was a medical emergency and we were making a stop-over, but shortly before we landed we were told that it wasn't a medical emergency, it was a bomb threat.
"Yesterday at the airport was a little crazy. We were interviewed and finger-printed, but everyone was really calm and in a good mood."