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Turkish Airlines forced to land in emergency at Barcelona after a bomb hoax

According to Spanish police and Turkish Airlines, a false bomb threat received via an onboard mobile connection forced a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul on Thursday to land at Barcelona's El Prat Airport after making an emergency landing.

Turkish Airlines spokesperson stated earlier that crew had detected that a passenger created an in-flight hotspot that was named with a?bomb warning as the aircraft approached?Barcelona.

The Guardia civil?police force in Spain said that after a thorough examination of the aircraft, following the disembarkation of its passengers, the alert was deactivated. No explosives were found. Spanish airport operator AENA confirmed that El Prat is operating 'normally.

The statement said that police have launched an investigation into the perpetrators of the hoax.

Turkey's flag airline has faced previous incidents of hoax threats that were usually sent via written messages and led to emergency landings. (Reporting and editing by Andrei Khalip, Susan Fenton and Susan Khalip in Madrid and Ceyda Kaglayan)

(source: Reuters)