A South Africa Airways flight to Johannesburg was forced to land back at Entebbe yesterday after a bomb scare on board. Airport officials said the plane returned 55 minutes after take off. The Chief of Aviation Security at Entebbe Airport, Mr David Kalya, said a passenger who went to the toilet as soon as the seatbelt signs went off had found a writing on the inside of the door asking: "Is there a bomb on this plane?" The writing was in a black marker. The passenger alerted the cabin crew. The pilot requested for permission to land and returned to Entebbe Airport. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 Flight No. SA 161, had taken off at 3.30 p.m. and landed back at 4.25, after 55 minutes in the air. Reports say it had left Ugandan airspace before it turned around. All 109 passengers on board were made to disembark and their luggage off loaded. Reports say among them was the former Inspector General of Government, Mr Jotham Tumwesigye. "The plane was taxed at the end of the runway away from the others and searched for explosives using sniffer dogs. The luggage was also screened and all passengers body-searched," Kalya said at the airport.
He said particular attention had been paid to three men. One of them is a Somali national, Mr Abdul Noor Mohammed, flying on an 'emergency' Somali passport. Mohammed arrived in Uganda yesterday morning on an earlier SAA flight, after being denied entry into South Africa. "Uganda also decided to deport him back to South Africa," an official said. Mohammed was also seated on the seat right next to the toilet where the writing had been done. However, the passenger next to him reportedly exonerated him by saying that he had been the last to enter the aircraft and had not left his seat since. The two other suspects were two male adults, who had black markers in their luggage, but they were exonerated because the passengers next to them said they had not left their seats. By 8.30 p.m yesterday, when we went to press, security officials had started quizzing a group of aircraft cleaners from Entebbe Handling Services, who had handled the aircraft.
| What's this? Profiling? Suspicion falls on poor Abdul Noor Mohammed just because he's got a turban and he's rolling his eyes and grimacing as he's being deported from country to country? |