Swedish police yesterday arrested a man on suspicion of planning to blow up a Boeing 777 flying from Canada to Pakistan, after a bomb threat forced an emergency landing in Stockholm.
“We are detaining a man that we suspect had some explosives aboard an aircraft between Canada and Pakistan,” Stefan Raadman of the Stockholm police, who is heading the investigation, told reporters at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.
Police said no explosives had been found in the search so far, and interviews with passengers and the suspect were ongoing.
The man, a Canadian citizen around the age of 30, was arrested for “planning to sabotage an airplane,” he added.
The Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) flight was on its away to Karachi from Toronto and landed at Arlanda airport shortly after 7.30 a.m. GMT.
It is now in a zone isolated from other aircraft and buildings.
A PIA spokesman told AFP some 243 passengers and 18 crew members were onboard.
“PK-782 was coming to Karachi from Toronto. As soon as the aircraft entered European airspace it was asked by the control tower to land in Stockholm as there was some threat,” spokesman Syed Sultan Hassan said.
“The pilot informed our central control here that he was landing in Stockholm,” he said.
He added the suspect was “of Pakistani origin“.
Stockholm police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said the suspect had been taken to the airport’s police station to be interrogated.
“We are interviewing the passengers and crew and in due course we will interview the person arrested. But we haven’t found anything dangerous or of interest so far,” said Lindgren.
Many police vehicles were surrounding the airplane as the evacuation and search took place, according to an AFP photographer.