An ArkeFly flight carrying 235 people from Amsterdam to Aruba in the Caribbean was forced to divert to Ireland on Wednesday after an unruly Dutch passenger made bomb threats during the flight. Skip related content
ArkeFly said Flight 361 landed at Shannon Airport, where the man was handed over to authorities. There were 224 passengers and 11 crew aboard the Boeing 767.

Irish police identified the man as a 44-year-old Dutch national and said he was in custody.

"He came across as a very unstable and aggressive passenger during the flight and he mentioned several times that he had planted a bomb in the airplane," an ArkeFly spokeswoman said.

There was no indication he had attempted to set off any sort of device during the flight, she said.

A spokeswoman for Shannon airport said the twin-aisle airliner had been towed to a remote location for a police search.

The plane is being held in a secured area until after its scheduled landing time at 7:30 p.m. British time as a precaution in case there are any timed devices on board, ArkeFly said.

A representative of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol declined to comment on the incident.

Amsterdam-Aruba flight diverted after bomb threat


The early reports of the threat immediately raised fears of another attempted plane bombing out of Amsterdam.

A 23-year-old Nigerian man flew out of Schiphol on Christmas Day has been charged in the United States with attempting to blow up that flight as it neared Detroit.

Schiphol has since tightened security, though primarily for flights to the United States. Nonetheless its international reputation has been sullied.

ArkeFly, which is headquartered in Schiphol, primarily operates charter flights. It is a unit of the global travel group TUI Travel Plc, Aruba, a Caribbean island that is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a popular tourist destination during the European winter.

(Additional reporting by Reed Stevenson, Catherine Hornby and Harro Ten Wolde in Amsterdam and Andras Gergely and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)




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