False alarm led to emergency landing in Kenya: Air France

Paris: The device whose discovery forced an Air France plane to make an emergency landing in Kenya was not a bomb, the carrier's CEO Frederic Gagey said on Sunday.

The suspected bomb, found in one of the restrooms on the plane which was flying from Mauritius to Paris, was made from cardboard and had some kind of timer.

The object appeared to be a bomb but "was not capable of causing an explosion or damaging the plane", Gagey told reporters.

A passenger engaging in "stupid behaviour" likely made the object, he said.

The plane, which made an emergency landing at the airport in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, was carrying 473 people.

Everyone aboard the aircraft was searched and taken to hotels, while bomb experts removed the suspicious object and examined it away from the airport.