The discovery of a suspicious device inside a lavatory in an Air France flight bound for Paris caused the airliner to initiate an emergency landing in Kenya on Sunday. The sinister-looking device, which prompted the evacuation of all 459 passengers and 14 crew members, was ultimately found to be a hoax, in what is the fourth bomb hoax against the airline in recent weeks, according to The New York Daily News.
Air France CEO Frederic Gagey stated that the homemade apparatus was discovered hidden in a lavatory cabinet behind a mirror in the airplane's lavatory. "It was an ensemble of cardboard, papers and something that resembled a kitchen timer. Nothing that presented a danger to the plane, to the passengers or to the crew," he said.
Though the suspect for the bomb scare has not been fully determined, a man, one of the passengers, was taken into custody immediately after the passengers were evacuated. The man, who has not been identified, was detained at Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, after Air France sent another airliner to pick the passengers up from Kenya, reports ABC News.
Though the man's name has not been released as of writing, it has been revealed that he was a retired police officer who was born in 1957. He was also the man who warned the crew about the device after he spotted it in the airplane's lavatory.
Air France believes that the object was placed in the lavatory during the flight, since crew members did not find anything amiss in the plane during routine checks which were performed before the airplane took off. In response to the incident, Air France has lodged a criminal complaint against those responsible for the bomb scare, according to The Wall Street Journal.
France has been on high terror alert since the brutal Paris attacks. Airlines have been on edge as well, especially since a Russian airliner crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula late October, killing all 224 people on board.
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