Bomb scare on flight to Dublin

lostexpectation

Flight Diversion to Glasgow Prestwick - FR25 Paris Beauvais to Dublin
Flight FR25 from Paris Beauvais to Dublin (today 12th April) was diverted to Glasgow Prestwick on the instruction of the UK Department for Transport, where it landed safely at 14:22. A note was passed to the cabin crew onboard claiming that there was a bomb onboard the aircraft. The Captain immediately reported this to the UK ATC and was instructed to divert to Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

All passengers together with Ryanair are co-operating fully with the police and local safety authorities. The aircraft will now be subject to a detailed search, following which we expect it will be cleared to travel onwards to Dublin.

Ryanair apologises sincerely for any inconvenience caused to these passengers, however the safety of our passengers and aircraft will always be our number one priority. Further updates will be posted on www.ryanair.com as they come to hand.

robinph

Prestwick seems a bit out of the way on a flight from Paris to Dublin though. Wonder why they felt the need to fly it up there?

Edit: Just noticed on the Ryanair press release that they are providing 'refreshments and other facilities'. I wonder if they will be charginf for these or not.

Mossy Monk

robinph wrote:

Prestwick seems a bit out of the way on a flight from Paris to Dublin though. Wonder why they felt the need to fly it up there?

odd indeed, unless of course the flight path was change or maybe it was the only airport in the area that could vacilitate the plane. not a great airport to be stranded in though

BuffyBot

It's probably the designated airport for emergencies of this nature.

RoundyMooney

BuffyBot wrote:

It's probably the designated airport for emergencies of this nature.

Quite right. It's one of two in the UK, and even though the flight was closer to DUB at the time, it was in UK airspace, and under UK air traffic control.

mike65

I suspect some dope is going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Mike.

robinph

RoundyMooney wrote:

Quite right. It's one of two in the UK, and even though the flight was closer to DUB at the time, it was in UK airspace, and under UK air traffic control.

At which point in the flight over Ireland would they have to scramble one of these instead of one of these to intercept a passenger airliner that reported a bomb on board?

Do the air corp actually have anything that could shoot a threatening plane out of the sky, which would be the current response to any aircraft over Europe that ATC lost communication with?

mike65

mike65 wrote:

I suspect some dope is going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Mike.

Thats very true. Remember bout a year back there was some girl in america (i think) who claimed that she had a bomb in her bag. Some stupid irish girl at an airport. She was lucky not to be arrested.

It's people like that that only fuel the paranoia that already is around.

mike65

robinph if a plane really did require shooting out of the sky the dept of defence would phone the MOD in London.

Mike.

dédé

Gosh I took that flight not long ago! :eek:

gerire

robinph wrote:

Do the air corp actually have anything that could shoot a threatening plane out of the sky, which would be the current response to any aircraft over Europe that ATC lost communication with?

The Marcheti CAN be armed but usually only is for training purposes

Hagar

mike65 wrote:

robinph if a plane really did require shooting out of the sky the dept of defence would phone the MOD in London.

Mike.

Jesus Mike, that is the most embarassing thing I have heard in ages.

Scraggs

Is it true that it was a plane full of students? Someone said that to me there but I dont know...

DublinWriter

robinph wrote:

At which point in the flight over Ireland would they have to scramble one of these instead of one of these to intercept a passenger airliner that reported a bomb on board?

Damn, you beat me to it.

robinph wrote:

Do the air corp actually have anything that could shoot a threatening plane out of the sky, which would be the current response to any aircraft over Europe that ATC lost communication with?

Ehhh no.

As the later poster said, although the Air Corps Marchetti does have rockets in the nose cone, it wouldn't stand a hope of even being able to catch up with a commercial jet airliner.

...even if it could, the rockets have no IR/heat-seeking guidance system, so the pilot would have to be a damn good aim.

But I believe the defence forces have been investigating a new ground-to-air system recently. It involves giant 40-foot industrial-strength rubber-bands and e-voting machines, but the exact details are top-secret.

Dave!

The Herald says that it was some mother of 4 from Drumcondra. She was locked out of her head too. She was ordered to pay bout €1400 (that's what Ryanair said it lost), and got the probation act.

Unless that was another case Seems fairly quick to go to print!

Scraggs wrote:

Is it true that it was a plane full of students? Someone said that to me there but I dont know...

Yep, 71 schoolkids
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=179232926&p=y79z3363z

DublinWriter

robinph wrote:

Prestwick seems a bit out of the way on a flight from Paris to Dublin though. Wonder why they felt the need to fly it up there?

Because Scotland is the most geographically distant place from London Air-Traffic-Control!

Scraggs

DaveMcG wrote:

Yep, 71 schoolkids
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=179232926&p=y79z3363z

turns out they were from my old school eeeek:o

Mossy Monk

DaveMcG wrote:

The Herald says that it was some mother of 4 from Drumcondra. She was locked out of her head too

if true she should be banned from flying on any airline in future

therecklessone

DublinWriter wrote:

Because Scotland is the most geographically distant place from London Air-Traffic-Control!

Stansted is the other airport designated to deal with emergencies. A tad closer to Swanick.

Chucky the tree

ANyone know what happened? I was thinking do they actually check the various manuals in the seats? THe ones about safety and the stuff they sell on board. Or are they checked before every flight?

i wonder if someone got off the plane and stuck a note in there to wait for the next flight. I know what i will be doing on the next flight.

Sleipnir

robinph wrote:

which would be the current response to any aircraft over Europe that ATC lost communication with?

It is? So if the pilots' of a laden 747 headphones go dead it's "sidewinder time"? Gimme a break would ya.
There are plenty targets around the world which are worth the effort but not in Ireland. If I were a terrorist intent on destroying "The Great Satan" I would have bigger things to think about than the Millenium Bridge or anything else we have, including shannon.


Do they check all the manuals? No.
Do they check every inch of the aircraft from a scrap of paper? No
Can someone with a biro, notebook and a sense that "it won't go that far" end up doing something like this? Yes they can.

Random

I love how they consider shooting down a jet full of people based on a note that could have been left there weeks ago

Also, nice one on the plane comparison - though I think our airspace is always "protected" by the RAF ... at least thats' what was going around Sept 11 time ... the british would come to our aid jada jada jada

robinph

Sleipnir wrote:

It is? So if the pilots' of a laden 747 headphones go dead it's "sidewinder time"? Gimme a break would ya.

Admittedly they ain't going to shoot him out of the sky at the first failiure to respond to ATC, but once you get a couple of Tornados flying alongside and the plane fails to respond to their orders of where to fly to they won't be having long left in the sky if they are continuing to fly towards a large population center no mater how many innocent passengers are on board.

How may airplane hijackings have you heard of since september 2001?

ciaranfo wrote:

though I think our airspace is always "protected" by the RAF

The coast guard rescue is all RAF controled isn't it around Irish waters, well RNLI at least even if they are only in boats?

aidan_dunne

DublinWriter wrote:

Damn, you beat me to it.



Ehhh no.

As the later poster said, although the Air Corps Marchetti does have rockets in the nose cone, it wouldn't stand a hope of even being able to catch up with a commercial jet airliner.

...even if it could, the rockets have no IR/heat-seeking guidance system, so the pilot would have to be a damn good aim.

But I believe the defence forces have been investigating a new ground-to-air system recently. It involves giant 40-foot industrial-strength rubber-bands and e-voting machines, but the exact details are top-secret.

Lads, lads, lads, come on, at least get your facts straight before you go slagging off the Air Corps!

Firstly, "rockets in the nose cone" of a Marchetti? The "nose cone" of a Marchetti, as you put it, actually consists of the propeller and the spinner for it, seeing as it's a prop-powered aircraft. So I don't know how the hell they'd manage to fit rockets into the propeller itself.

The Marchetti's used to be armed with 2.75" rocket pods or machine gun pods under the wings where necessary. And yes, you read that right folks, I did say used to be armed, as in the past tense, because in case you didn't know (and seeing as the defence forces website hasn't been updated yet! :rolleyes: ) the Marchetti's have all been retired from service or are in the process of being retired. With the delivery of the two Eurocopter EC135's at the end of last year and the impending arrival of the four Agusta AB139's (2 expected to be delivered this year and 2 next year), the one remaining Gazelle helicopter and the four remaining Dauphin's have also recently been retired from service. Though, amazingly enough, the 40 year old plus Allouette III's are still in service and are expected to continue to be so for a while yet, even when the Air Corps takes delivery of the new choppers. Amazing to think that they've even outlasted the aircraft that were ordered to replace them, the Dauphins, isn't it? :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to the subject of the Marchetti's. In case you didn't know, the Air Corps has replaced them with these.....



..... the Pilatus PC-9M, a much more advanced and capable aircraft. Now, whilst being much faster than the old Marchetti's, they would still probably struggle to intercept an airliner. It's technically possible, yes, given the right conditions, intercept track and speed that the airliner in question is travelling but, in reality, it would be a difficult job. And even if one of the PC-9's could intercept and keep up with one, the Air Corps is still only arming them with rocket and gun pods like they did with the Marchetti's. The PC-9 can be armed with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and some other countries which operate it have done so, but the Air Corps has no plans to do so with ours. Hence why we still need to call on the services of the RAF and their much faster, missile-armed Tornado jets to cover our airspace when these kinds of incidents arise. This will continue to be the case for many years to come because there are no plans presently for the Air Corps to ever aquire fast jets again so we are just going to have to accept the fact of British fighters flying in and protecting our airspace for the foreseeable future whether we like it or not, I'm afraid.

However, as for the "rubber band and e-voting machine" surface-to-air system you mentioned, well, you may be shocked to find that, in fact, the Army do actually have a proper surface-to-air missile system. In fact, when ole Georgie-boy dropped in to visit there last year or the year before, the Army actually deployed the system and had it on standby "just in case". So we're not quite as badly off in that department as you may think.

Dooom

Shhhh..aidan's some sort of Government agent..

lostexpectation

aidan_dunne wrote:

However, as for the "rubber band and e-voting machine" surface-to-air system you mentioned, well, you may be shocked to find that, in fact, the Army do actually have a proper surface-to-air missile system. In fact, when ole Georgie-boy dropped in to visit there last year or the year before, the Army actually deployed the system and had it on standby "just in case". So we're not quite as badly off in that department as you may think.

so the Ireland's army does have enough weaponary to scaremonger the Irish people atleast hurrah!

A Dub in Glasgo

A gross over reaction

3 fighter jets, diversion to Prestwick, the police refusing to allow the passengers off the aircraft once it touched down for 2 hours!! If they seriously thought there was a bomb on board, why would they lock the doors on a plane full of school girls for 2 hours??

Dave!

DaveMcG wrote:

The Herald says that it was some mother of 4 from Drumcondra. She was locked out of her head too. She was ordered to pay bout €1400 (that's what Ryanair said it lost), and got the probation act.

Unless that was another case Seems fairly quick to go to print!

Sorry about this folks, that's a different case... Coincidence that her trial ends up in the paper and later that day someone does the same thing, I guess

Lump

Yes, cause that'd look good if they shot down a commercial airliner because of a threat.... you've all been watching way too much 24!

John

Tobias Greeshman

It was full of 70 odd Schoolgirls from Leo's in Carlow. Wouldn't surprise me for a minute if one of them was responsible, taking the p1ss with a note about a bomb. It was apparantly found in a magazine, I can see it now with them passing around a magazine and one of them wrote it messing, before long a panic ensues with an emergency landing.

Sparky

Lump wrote:

Yes, cause that'd look good if they shot down a commercial airliner because of a threat.... you've all been watching way too much 24!

John

Stop it you

Scraggs

silas wrote:

It was full of 70 odd Schoolgirls from Leo's in Carlow.

yeah that'd be about right...

Lump

silas wrote:

It was full of 70 odd Schoolgirls from Leo's in Carlow.

WORST FLIGHT EVA!

whiskeyman

BBC Radio just reporting an Aer Arann Flight from Luton to Galway has been diverted to Prestwick after similar note handed to flight crew...

Random

So ... if you're feeling sick and fancy a stopover with free refreshments just hand a bomb note to a steward? bollocks to the world.

bounty

does the army have any surface to air missiles?

Random

They have a few wraps and a massive rubber band!

lostexpectation

http://news.google.ie/news?hl=en&q=Aer%20Arann%20Flight&btnG=Google+Search&cr=countryIE&sa=N&tab=wn

Dooom

I think I remember something I heard on the Discovery channel a while back, went along the lines of; "If there's a bomb note, then there isn't a bomb".

Could be completely wrong there though.
But think about it, what's the point of writing "There's a bomb on your plane" when you're cruising along at 400mph and the bomb's going to explode soon?
If the bomb goes off in the air, everyone's dead anyway. May aswell just write a note saying "I'm terribly sorry about this, but I'll be killing you all in a few minutes".

And surely the act of air terrorism would be somewhat more frightening if there were no notes? Ie. the police/pilots or whoever would have absolutely no notice of anything, so a bomb could be placed and detonated without ever saying a word.

Dooom

Hmm..another..Anyone else think this is the beginning of a huge worldwide attack by those lads that don't like us?
They're placing bomb hoaxes so the planes are diverted and block up the airports and tie up planes and whatnot.

Either that or this's some form of precurser to an actual bombing of a plan moving over Britain.
That or they've just discovered that Ireland exists and have some grudge against us.

sysconp1

Ever thought it may be the nasty people from Aer Fungus that don't like Ryan Air? After all who would fly with an airline that is constantly downed by bomb threats. Whether they are real or not, they have the desired effect.... develop fear in customers and reduce profits for the company.

The aim of terrorism isn't necessarily to kill anyone, only to put the fear into people and change the course of normal life through fear!

BuffyBot

Spike wrote:

I think I remember something I heard on the Discovery channel a while back, went along the lines of; "If there's a bomb note, then there isn't a bomb".

Could be completely wrong there though.

It really doesn't matter what you saw on Discovery. You simply can't take chances.

Anyone else think this is the beginning of a huge worldwide attack by those lads that don't like us? They're placing bomb hoaxes so the planes are diverted and block up the airports and tie up planes and whatnot.

Eh, no.

CuLT

Cheapest terrorist ever. Jesus, all you need is a biro and a scrap of paper and you can cause mayhem with world travel.

DublinWriter

aidan_dunne wrote:

Lads, lads, lads, come on, at least get your facts straight before you go slagging off the Air Corps!

However, as for the "rubber band and e-voting machine" surface-to-air system you mentioned, well, you may be shocked to find that, in fact, the Army do actually have a proper surface-to-air missile system.

I'm shocked to learn that the Army are the ones officially tasked with the Air Defence of this country.

This is obviously due to the fact that the Air Corps don't have anything capable of interception.

Remember the fiasco behind the Patiot missle system in the first Gulf war?

Even a 'proper surface-to-air' missle is of limited effectiveness compared to a properly equiped air force that has the ability to intercept with air-to-air missles.

I'm not slagging off the Air Corps, they are a bunch of professional men and women, I'm slagging off this government's failure to properly equip them and to allow the organisation become a free pilot-training school for Ryanair.

Sleipnir

We have this debate time and time again. We have no need of a modern fully equipped air force because we couldn't defend ourselves against those who are most likely to attack us anyway.

If there were a situation where a plane was to be used to attack Ireland (like New York in 2001) then we wouldn't know until it happened. Nobody in New York knew it was a terrorist attack until the 2nd place hit. A modern airforce is 100% useless against such an attack.

If a terrorist organisation were to attack, Ireland would be no more than a symbolic target. We have no strategic targets (unless they are planning to invade) It would also be a waste of an aircraft and it's use as a weapon.

There is also so much air traffic over and out of Ireland that we wouldn't know it was an attack until it was too late. If someone decided to take over a commercial plane from Dublin yo London, when you decide to shoot it down. It would only have to change course for 2 to 3 minutes on it's final approach for it to crash into Dublin City Centre. Not enough time for an air defence network to
a.) try to contact the commercial flight
b.) decide it's a threat
c.) contact to seek permission to engage.
d.) decide that shooting it down as the only option
e.) pass on decision to air defence
f.) air defence to launch.

That's at least 30 minutes by which time the aircraft would be halfway across the country.

Gone West

BuffyBot wrote:

It's probably the designated airport for emergencies of this nature.

whipping boy

aidan_dunne

DublinWriter wrote:

I'm shocked to learn that the Army are the ones officially tasked with the Air Defence of this country.

This is obviously due to the fact that the Air Corps don't have anything capable of interception.

Remember the fiasco behind the Patiot missle system in the first Gulf war?

Even a 'proper surface-to-air' missle is of limited effectiveness compared to a properly equiped air force that has the ability to intercept with air-to-air missles.

I'm not slagging off the Air Corps, they are a bunch of professional men and women, I'm slagging off this government's failure to properly equip them and to allow the organisation become a free pilot-training school for Ryanair.

I have to agree with you there. Time and again, successive governments have treated the Air Corps as just their own, private, personal airline / airborne taxi service. A good example of this was the recent tender for new utility helicopters. US Blackhawks were the preferred choice because they are a proven platform, shown by the extensive use of them by many countries around the world, they're reliable, spare parts are readily available for them and the Army Ranger Wing (who the government said were another reason they were buying these new choppers. They wanted helicopters they could use as airmobile units for the Rangers) has previous experience of operating from Blackhawks in other countries. However, in the end, what did the government decide to go with instead? The Agusta AB139, basically a flying limo! A brand new helicopter, unproven, with no previous military service, basically a large, commercial helicopter which is having to be modified and adapted for a military role compared to the Blackhawk which was designed from the start as a military helicopter. The government completely ignored the recommendations, passed on the best military helicopter for the tasks assigned to it and, just like the Dauphins, the government instead chose the brand new, fancy looking, bells-and-whistles chopper instead of the proven, tried and tested, purpose-built, proper military helicopter. Why? Because Bertie obviously doesn't want to be seen climbing out of a Blackhawk, that's why. Because, just like the Dauphins before them, what can I see the AB139s end up being mainly used for? Ferrying the politicians around the country to ribbon-cutting affairs instead of being used for the military and aid-to-civil-power purposes they were supposedly bought for, that's what! That's why they chose it, not because they actually wanted to equip the Air Corps with proper equipment for once, oh no, they chose it because it'll look nice and really cool when they land at some function or something somewhere! :mad: Plus, the Air Corps is only getting four of them. The recommendation was for a minimum of six or eight of these new utility helicopters. Once again, the government ends up f**king over the Air Corps and shortchanging them! :mad:

You're spot on, DublinWriter, about the Air Corps currently being little more than a "free pilot-training school for Ryanair". The level of turnover of pilots in the Air Corps is apparantly very high but, to be honest, I can't blame them for wanting to leave as soon as their time is up. Commercial pilots are much better paid than the Air Corps, it seems some aircraft are constantly grounded due to lack of spare parts, lack of maintenence, etc., the Air Corps pilots don't get nearly enough hours flying time and, when they do, it's usually just to ferry some politician somewhere. Is it any wonder pilots keep leaving then?

There needs to be a massive overhauling, restructuring and re-equipment of the defense forces in this country, in my opinion. In recent years we've seen how improvements have been made with the Army and how they've gotten new equipment (new uniforms, weapons, APC's, etc.). This is a welcome development and not before time. The Naval Service has in the past 6 years or so aquired two new ships but could still do with more. A recommendation a few years ago said that, in order to adequately patrol and protect our waters and fishery areas, realistically we needed a minimum of 12 vessels. The Air Corps needs massive restructuring and overhauling and, most of all, for the politicians to decide if it's going to be a proper military and aid-to-civil-power force or not. Because, as I said before, as it stands right now it's little more than a governmental airborne taxi service. If it is going to be taken seriously and treated as a proper branch of the defence forces, it should be equipped properly and left to do proper military and aid-to-civil-power tasks, not simply used by politicians all the time as their own personal airline.

robinph

Sleipnir wrote:

If there were a situation where a plane was to be used to attack Ireland (like New York in 2001) then we wouldn't know until it happened. Nobody in New York knew it was a terrorist attack until the 2nd place hit. A modern airforce is 100% useless against such an attack.

The air traffic control knew that they had lost contact with the planes a good while before the first plane hit though, its just they had no reason to expect someone to then fly it into a building. I think that the transponders were turned off though so they would have been difficult to track on the radar. Worst case they would have expected though would be for them to eventualy make contact and request to land somewhere to refuel before coming up with some other demands.

It may take upto a good 30 minutes for any military plane to be able to intercept a stray airliner, but it would also take a bit more than just the last couple of minutes before the flight was due to come in to land for a bunch of terrorists to be able to take control of the plane and then get it setup on the course that they wanted though. They would not be wanting to leave that until the last moment.

But thankfully Ossama and his buddies have now made air travel much safer for all of us. Old stlye airline hijackings where they get hold of a plane and then land, make some demands and then fly off somewhere else, are not likely to happen any more as once the plane is on the ground there is no way it will be allowed back into the air. As the bad guys know this there is little point in them trying. The new flying into a building terrorist action is also now pretty unlikely as the bad guys will either get shot down, or beaten to a plup by the plane load of passengers who will by then be expecting to die anyway like on the fourth plane.