At least 70 flights were disrupted by hoax bomb threats in India in a disturbing trend that has rattled the country’s aviation sector.

The wave of threats, mostly issued via X, caused alarm among passengers and aviation authorities alike, and prompted urgent responses from government officials.

Over a dozen threats were made on Friday, followed by over 30 made on Saturday alone.

Three international flights of Vistara Airlines received threats early on Saturday morning, with one flight from Delhi to London diverted to Frankfurt. The other two flights were heading to Paris and Hong Kong respectively after taking off from New Delhi.

One of the threats was made to a Vistara flight arriving in Mumbai from Germany’s Frankfurt earlier in the week, carrying 147 passengers and crew. The aircraft made an emergency landing at the Mumbai airport at 7.45am local time and was taken to the isolation bay for mandatory security checks.

A similar threat forced an Air India flight to Chicago to make an emergency landing in Canada, stranding over 200 passengers for over 18 hours at a remote airport.

Another Air India flight from Mumbai to New York had to be rerouted to Delhi, evacuated, and searched for explosives.

The threats have also prompted security agencies to conduct counterterrorist drills at various airports, leading to flight delays.

Is there a ‘pattern’ behind the threats?

Indian police and security agencies have launched investigations into these incidents, but made little headway. So far they have only arrested a minor boy accused of issuing three hoax threats from a fake X handle, supposedly in a bid to implicate his friend.

Investigators have been trying to establish a “pattern” in the series of threats to various airlines, the Hindustan Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

“There is a pattern behind the messages. A threat is given using social media or through a phone call, and then suddenly similar threats start to appear within a short span of time,” an aviation security official, who was part of the discussions, told the paper.

“VPNs have been used to post the messages to avoid being traced. We’re analysing the pattern, and investigation agencies are coordinating to locate the sources of threats.”

The intention, the official claimed, was to “definitely disturb the aviation sector, create panic, and keep the agencies on their toes”.

Officials found that around 70 per cent of these threats have all come from the same source – an unverified and anonymous account on X that made threats to 46 domestic and international flights of Indian carriers in two days.

The account made 12 threats on Friday night and 34 on Saturday, reported Indian news daily The Indian Express. The account has now been suspended by X.

How many flights have been targeted?

As many as 70 bomb threats have been sent since they began on Monday.

A Vistara flight and an Air India Express flight received bomb threats on Tuesday night, and four flights of IndiGo, two of SpiceJet and one of Akasa Air were targeted on Wednesday.

IndiGo flight 6E 74 from Riyadh to Mumbai was diverted to Muscat, Oman, while 6E 515 from Chennai to Lucknow needed to be isolated upon landing. Another IndiGo flight from Delhi to Mumbai was redirected to Ahmedabad on Tuesday night.

An Akasa Air flight taking 180 people to Bengaluru returned to Delhi after a similar scare on Wednesday afternoon.

An Air India flight from Delhi to Chicago was diverted to the remote Iqaluit airport in Canada after the airline received a threat on Tuesday.

The 211 passengers and crew made their way to Chicago on Wednesday after the Canadian Air Force flew them out, having spent 18 hours stranded at the airport.

Five flights from IndiGo and Akasa were sent threats, as well as three from Vistara and one from Air India Express.

How are authorities responding?

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transportation summoned Vumlunmang Vualnam, India’s top civil aviation bureaucrat, who informed the lawmakers that efforts to identify suspects were underway.

The Delhi Police had registered eight complaints against unknown individuals in relation to the recent spate of hoax threats targeting multiple international and domestic flights, he said.

The Mumbai police arrested a boy, 17, for allegedly issuing three of the threats through social media accounts that he had created in the name of his friend. He was reportedly arrested from the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

The federal government has decided to put more air marshals on flights, the Hindustan Times reported.

“Currently, a total of 35 air marshals are deployed in flights across certain sensitive sectors. The number of such marshals will be increased to 100,” an unnamed official told the paper.

On Saturday, officials from India’s aviation safety body Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) met the chief executive officers of the airlines in New Delhi to go over the operating procedure in case of a bomb threat. All CEOs were asked to follow the standard operating procedure when a threat comes in, as well as keep all stakeholders informed as to the actions being taken. (The Independent)