Berlin: A false alarm over a suspicious
suitcase forced the landing in Iceland of a German airliner
bound for Detroit, national flag carrier Lufthansa said on Sunday.
A spokesman for the airline said that the
Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt yesterday with 160 people on
board was carrying luggage from a passenger who was not on the
plane.
As a precaution, the pilots landed the Airbus A330 in
Iceland, where the baggage was removed. The flight then
continued on to Detroit with a delay of about two hours.
The spokesman declined to comment on media reports
that security experts feared there were explosives on board,
but noted that all luggage in Frankfurt is X-rayed before
being loaded onto planes.
"At no time was there a threat to security," he said.
It was not immediately clear how the luggage turned up
on the plane without its owner.
The incident came as a 23-year-old Nigerian was
charged in the United States with trying to blow up a
Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam as it was preparing
to land in Detroit on Christmas Day.
Airports worldwide, including Germany`s largest in
Frankfurt, have since stepped up security.
PTI
