Bomb Threat Forces Russian Flight from US to Divert to Iceland

A passenger Aeroflot jet heading from New York to Moscow made an emergency landing in Iceland after an anonymous caller said there was a bomb on board the Russian plane.

"There was an anonymous call saying that there was an explosive device on the plane, which was already in the air," Aeroflot spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg says to Reuters. "The pilot took the decision to land the plane and it landed safely."

The Aerobus A330 contained 256 passengers on Aeroflot Flight 103 which left from John F. Kennedy airport in New york and was heading to Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow on Thursday. The flight was delayed and had left New York two hours later than scheduled due to storms.

The caller called New York City police and claimed that five of the suitcases on board contained explosives which would go off once the plane reached Moscow.

"The bomb threat was made sometime earlier in the morning and at 05:30 GMT the plane decided to head for Keflavik," Fridthor Eydal, a spokesman for the airport told the BBC.

Iris Marelsdottir of Iceland's Civil Protection Agency told The Associated Press that passengers were being taken care of by the Red Cross in Iceland's capital city Reykjavik. The plane, passengers and cargo were all being screened after the bomb threat as officials investigated the issue.

"The search for explosives is under way in accordance with aviation security procedures and plans," Marelsdottir says to AP. "They haven't found any explosives, and I don't know long the search will go on."

This wasn't the only flight that received a bomb threat on Thursday. Another flight in the city of Voronezh, 300 miles south of Moscow, had to be searched for explosives after another anonymous phone caller claimed that the flight contained a bomb. However no bomb was found, according to Reuters.

Russia has been a target of flight bombings in recent years, so these threats were not taken lightly. In 2011, a suicide bomber blew up an international flight at Moscow's Domodedova, resulting in 37 deaths. In 2004, two more suicide bombers blew up two domestic Russian flights, killing all 90 people on board the planes. The bombers are believes to be Islamist insurgents from Russia's North Caucasus.