Series of hoax bomb threats disrupts China flights
After five incidents in two months, airline says government's emergency response capabilities will be exhausted by repeated threats
Mainland air travellers are dealing with disruptions caused by an increase in hoax bomb threats.
On Tuesday, Air China received fake bomb threats about two flights to Beijing - one from Lhasa , Tibet , and the other from Nanchang , Jiangxi - that were phoned in by a mentally ill man just before they were about to take off, causing hours of delay to hundreds of passengers, state media reported.
They were the fourth and fifth hoax bomb threats targeting mainland airlines in less than two months.
Professor Sun Ruishan, director of the Research Institute of Civil Aviation Safety in Tianjin , said such frequent threats were rare.
"I have not heard much about bomb hoaxes in China until recently," he said.
Passengers are the biggest victims of such hoax calls. More than 300 passengers on an Air China flight from Beijing to New York had to return to the capital on August 29, despite being more than three hours into the flight. Their identities and personal belongings were checked for hours by hundreds of security personnel at Beijing Capital International Airport.