UPDATED: Bergen’s Flesland Airport was open for normal traffic again on Thursday morning, with most flights running on time, after a bomb threat was called in late Wednesday night that led to an immediate evacuation and closure. Police have a suspect in custody, a 44-year-old woman from Bergen.
The suspect has a history of making threats against public institutions. Police in Bergen said she was undergoing questioning throughout the day on Thursday and faced a custody hearing on Friday.
The bomb threat, which comes just days after a similar threat forced closure of the airport in Trondheim, was called in at 10:40pm, a relatively quiet time for the airport on Norway’s west coast. Around 150 passengers plus airport employees were evacuated and incoming flights from Oslo, London and Frankfurt were allowed to land but kept away from the airport terminal.
Local newspaper Bergens Tidende reported that the airport was closed for more than two hours while police searched the terminal building. Passengers were taken to a nearby hotel and most waited until the emergency was over and they could collect their luggage.
The airport reopened around 1am, with four parked flights including a late arrival from Riga finally allowed to approach the terminal and discharge passengers.
No explosives were found and police said they had tracked down the suspected caller, who has a police record and a conviction from as late as February 2012, according to Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). The suspect was arrested in downtown Bergen around 2am.
“She denies she called in the threat, but we believe we have strong evidence that she did,” prosecutor Jan Grahl-Madsen of the Hordaland Police District.
The suspect arrested in Bergen is not believed to be connected to the bomb threat called in to Trondheim’s Værnes airpot on Monday that affected thousands of people and resulted in the closure of the airport in the middle of the day. That suspect, a 36-year-old man with a history of psychiatic problems, was still being sought by police.
newsinenglish.no/Nina Berglund