Stolen iPhone delays flight

An Air Malta flight due to have taken off for Manchester at 3.30 p.m. was delayed after the police searched passengers for a stolen iPhone.

The owner had been trying to trace the phone for a week from another device, using the Find My iPhone App, after it was taken from the Excelsior Hotel where he was attending an event last week.

Jean Paul Azzopardi said he had received an occasional satellite signal over the past few days but had still not managed to pin down the person now in possession of his phone.

Yesterday afternoon he picked up another signal showing the phone was at the airport and alerted the police. The police took action just as passengers were boarding. Passengers who were on the plane were asked to disembark and they were searched but the phone did not turn up.

“It must have been switched off on the plane,” Mr Azzopardi said, expressing gratitude towards the police for their intervention.

He said Air Malta also searched the plane but could find no trace of the phone.

“There are plenty of places where a phone could have been hidden aboard the plane,” he said.

The plane took off at 5 p.m. Informed sources said the decision to delay take-off was taken by Air Malta at the request of the police.

An Air Malta spokesman said the airline cooperated with the police.