A bomb threat was made against a WestJet flight heading to Victoria International Airport from Las Vegas on Thursday.
Someone called airport security and made a threat against WestJet flight 1709 around 4:20 p.m., said Geoff Dickson, CEO of the Victoria Airport Authority. Five minutes later, another threatening call came in.
The airport contacted the RCMP and Transport Canada, Dickson said. “Upon arrival, it was deemed to be non-credible,” he said of the threat.
After the plane landed just before 6 p.m., passengers were alerted about the threat and told to disembark the plane without bags or cellphones. Passengers waited in customs for about an hour-and-a-half as a Victoria police bomb sniffing dog screened the plane and all luggage “out of an abundance of caution,” Dickson said.
Victoria resident Mike Aldridge said when the plane landed the captain said there had been a threat against the aircraft. Then an RCMP officer came on board, asking everyone to leave the plane. “We didn’t really know what was going on,” he said. “They didn’t tell us until the end.”
Parksville resident Sandra Strawsom said everyone remained calm and she didn’t feel like there was imminent danger. “We feel if it was a proper bomb threat we wouldn’t have been left in the terminal 20 yards from the plane.”
WestJet flight 1908 to Las Vegas, using the same plane and scheduled to leave Victoria airport at 7 p.m., was cancelled.
Mounties have launched a criminal investigation to determine who made the threat, said Sidney/North Saanich RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Erin Fraser. Investigators are looking into whether there are links to other threats against WestJet flights this week.
This was the fifth bomb threat against a WestJet flight since the weekend.
On Canada Day, a bomb threat forced a WestJet flight from Vancouver to Toronto to make an emergency landing in Calgary. Passengers continued on to Toronto on other flights.
On Tuesday, a WestJet plane in Saskatoon was delayed by another threat. A flight from Edmonton to Toronto was diverted to Winnipeg on Monday, and on Saturday, a WestJet flight out of Edmonton was forced to land in Saskatoon.
At St. John’s last Thursday, an Air Canada flight was delayed after a threatening note was found in a washroom.
