Aviation security regulator Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has mandated robust protocols for handling such threats, the report said.
The Indian Airlines have reported 809 hoax bomb threats in the last five years, with 719 in 2024 alone, a government data tabled in Parliament revealed.
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Four hoax bomb threat messages were reported by the airlines in 2020 and two in 2021. In 2022, airlines reported 13 hoax bomb threat messages, which rose to 71 in 2023, as per the data. In 2024, 719 hoax bomb threat messages have been reported by the airlines.
“Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has information of a total of 809 hoax bomb threats received by airlines since 2020,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Aviation security regulator Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has mandated robust protocols for handling such threats, the minister said.
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Moreover, a detailed contingency plan — Bomb Threat Contingency Plan (BTCP) — is in place to handle such threats. As a part of BTCP, every airport has a designated Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC), which analyses the threats and acts accordingly, he added.
He also said that to deal with hoax bomb threats, BCAS has issued advisories to all the civil aviation stakeholders in the country to ensure streamlined security measures and prevent any unlawful interference with civil aviation.
Union civil aviation minister K Rammohan Naidu had earlier said that the ministry is looking at an amendment to the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act (SUASCA) to enable law enforcement agencies to invoke this law against people who make hoax bomb threats about aircraft at airports.
“From the Ministry, we have thought of some legislative action if it is required. We have concluded that there are two areas that we can explore – 1) Amendment in Aircraft Security Rules…one of the ideas that we want to propagate by changing these rules is that once we catch hold of the perpetrator who is behind this, we want to put them in the no-flying list… 2) Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act…,” Naidu had said.
