“bomb threat” on EgyptAir flight from Cairo to New York

A PASSENGER jet escorted by fighter planes made an emergency landing in Scotland yesterday after a threatening note was discovered on board. The letter, written on a napkin and found in a toilet on the EgyptAir flight from Cairo to New York, allegedly said: “I’ll set this plane on fire.”

However, the airline chairman described the find as a “bomb threat”.

Two RAF Typhoons were scrambled to escort the Boeing 777 into Prestwick Airport, in Ayrshire, where it was immediately surrounded by armed police.

A flight tracker shows the diversion came as the plane was flying over the North Sea.

Passenger and BBC producer Nada Tafik said she found the note in a toilet and described it as a “pretty tense situation”.

She added: “When I went in to change my daughter about three hours into the flight, I found a note by the sink saying ‘I set this plane on fire’ with the seat number 46D written on it, so I immediately went to the crew and told them about it.

“It was on a hand napkin, written in pencil and the pencil was actually still there so I told the crew to make sure to keep it so experts could take any fingerprints from it. They locked the bathroom immediately.

“It almost looked like a child’s handwriting or someone who has very sloppy handwriting, but it was very alarming especially these days when everyone is so concerned about safety on flights. I asked one of the stewardesses if it could be a prank and she said no.

“Someone has a very bad sense of humour because it was really scary.”

Ms Tafik said that passengers were not allowed to disembark at Prestwick for quite some time and admitted that the atmosphere inside the plane had been a “bit chaotic”.

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