Chilean authorities are investigating at least 11 passenger plane bomb threats, received on Thursday, Chile’s Bio-Bio radio station has reported.
Some of the planes are owned by South American air carrier LATAM, formed as a result of merger between Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM, the rest belongs to Chile’s Sky Airlines.
According to Bio-Bio, three planes had to perform emergency landings in Chile and Peru.
After that, eight bomb threats were received. In two cases, the bomb threat was obviously a hoax, because the caller spoke about non-existent flights.
"This is very unusual. Nothing of this kind has ever happened to us, but anyway we work in coordination with the carabineers and police investigators," Bio-Bio quoted Chilean civil aviation official Victor Villalobos as saying.
Earlier in the day, the transport ministry of Peru reported that a LATAM plane made an emergency landing in the city of Pisco due to a bomb threat. The plane with 83 passengers on board was performing a flight from Lima to Santiago.
Argentine’s Canal 3 de Rosario said the airport in the Argentinean city of Rosario was briefly closed after a bomb threat, caused by the arrival of a Chilean plane. The plane was searched, but nothing suspicious was found.