KAL72 YVR - ICN diverts to YQQ with bomb threat

[Airbrake]

Must be exciting for Comox to see something that big with Hornets buzzing around it!

Hope it's nothing though.


http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/natio ... ice=mobile

A Korean Air 777 passenger jet en route from Vancouver to Seoul turned around and landed at CFB Comox, reportedly under fighter escort, almost three hours after it took off, officials say.
Alisa Gloag, speaking for Vancouver International Airport, confirmed that Flight 82 with 149 passengers aboard had landed safely at the military base at 5:22 p.m.
“They took off and then turned around and came back,” she said.
CTV reported that the aircraft landed under escort by a Canadian CF-18, but Ms. Gloag said she could not confirm the fighter role.
CTV reported, as of about 6:10 p.m., that no one had departed the aircraft, which was on the runway at CFB Comox.
The network said there were reports of a threat on board.
“The aircraft is safely on the ground. We’re just processing the situation,” said a major at the military base, who declined to provide his name pending the further release of information by media relations.

[Apollo]

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/KAL72

A bomb threat prompted the crew of a Korean Air 777 airliner to make an emergency landing at a military airbase on Vancouver Island.

Korean Air flight 72, with 149 people on board, had taken off from Vancouver International Airport headed for Seoul, South Korea, at 2:30 p.m. PT Tuesday.

The crew turned back off the north coast of B.C. after a bomb threat was made in a telephone call to the airline's Los Angeles office, a Korean Air spokesman told CBC News.

The flight was diverted to the airbase at Comox, on Vancouver Island, escorted by U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets that had been scrambled from Portland, Ore., according to Victoria's Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre.

The flight landed at about 5:50 p.m. PT, apparently without incident.

No further details have been made available.

[cdnpilot77]

2 articles and 2 different accounts of the fighter escort. The other said it was f-15's from Portland, OR. Knowing the media, I'm sure we will find out it was neither...probably a hoax for the test bed F35's to practise an intercept and prove their worth to us all once and for all!

[Ralliart]

That's an interesting profile on Flightaware.

They turned back over Haida Gwaii and were almost back to Vancouver, then made a U-turn by Sechelt, went back up the Georgia Strait for a southbound landing at Comox.

Turned down for YVR at the last minute?

[AirFrame]

They probably got sent back because someone at NavCabana called in sick and they were short staffed... "Terminal Class C airspace restricted," is all we VFR pilots hear when we call in down here when we want to fly across the water...