Norway’s northern city of Alta was without its mobile phone network for nearly an hour Wednesday night. Police asked mobile operator Telenor to shut it down, because of fears that a bomb threatened to have been placed on a jet parked at Alta airport could be detonated from afar.
The bomb threat against a Norwegian Air flight from Oslo to Alta Wednesday morning had already forced evacuation of the jet upon landing and closed the airport for the rest of the day. Local police called in a state bomb squad from Oslo to search the aircraft, and they arrived on a military flight Wednesday evening.
Telenor was asked to disable all of its base stations in Alta when the bomb squad boarded the aircraft, because whoever sent in the bomb threat claimed it could be set off electronically from another location. Police stressed that the area’s emergency network (nødnettet) remained active, however, so all fire, police and ambulance service remained available.
Norwegian Air’s jet was finally cleared just before midnight and the airport could open for normal operations again after flight disruptions and cancellations most of the day. No bombs or explosives of any kind were found.
“We have started an investigation into who was behind the bomb threat,” Bjørn Tormod Syversen of the Alta police told news bureau NTB. The threat, the second to be made against Norwegian Air this month, was made over the airline’s own online chat service while the flight from Oslo was airborne. Syversen said police wouldn’t comment on whether they already had any suspects.
newsinenglish.no staff