A 19-year-old man is still being questioned by gardai tonight after being arrested in connection with a bomb hoax involving a Delta Airlines flight which was forced to land in Shannon airport yesterday.
A Garda spokesman said the man, a passenger on the flight, is a German national and is being held in Shannon Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. He must be charged or released in the next hour as he can only held for up to12 hours.
Passengers on the flight were each interviewed and fingerprinted by gardaí at Shannon in an attempt to identity the person responsible for a note in the aircraft's toilet indicating a bomb was on board. A search completed last night confirmed the note was a hoax.
The Delta Airlines aircraft, en route from Frankfurt to Atlanta, Georgia, was expected to continue its journey at midday.
With 147 passengers and crew on board, including two infants, the aircraft made its emergency landing at Shannon at 12.38 p.m. yesterday, with emergency services from Shannon and Ennis on site.
After landing safely, the aircraft taxied to a remote part of the airport where the passengers and crew were evacuated and transferred to the terminal.
As a precaution and in response to a threat that any bomb would have a timer attached, a search of the plane by gardaí was not made until 7 p.m. when the scheduled flight time to Atlanta had elapsed.
The day-long operation involved 20 gardaí who were assisted by detectives from Shannon and Ennis and airport police. The gardaí also took hand-writing samples from each passenger through their landing cards in an attempt to match it with the handwritten note.