Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) was on Wednesday afternoon temporarily closed after a commotion on a Kenya Airways flight headed to Johannesburg due to a security threat.
Some people had already speculated to be a bomb.
However, early reports indicated that it was a hoax and two passengers have been detained over ‘false bomb’ alarm.
This is not the first time the airport has been hit with such a scare.
Back in November 2017, a Turkish Airlines plane bound for Egypt made an emergency landing in the Sudanese capital Khartoum over a bomb scare.Â
The plane was flying from the Kenyan capital Nairobi and had 107 passengers on board when it left the JKIA for Cairo.
Sudan’s Civil Aviation Authority Spokesman Abdelhafiz Abdelrahim told AFP that the pilot informed Khartoum Airport once he was already in Sudan’s airspace that he needed to make an emergency landing.
He clarified that once the plane landed, security officers searched the plane but did not find anything incriminating.
In 2014, JKIA faced a major scare after a smoke grenade was discovered in the washrooms.
Mr Robert Ombeka, a cleaner raised the alarm after he came across a red metallic gadget next to the transit lounge where Somali bound aircraft were usually screened.
“It was on the toilet breather,” he said in a statement taken by JKIA Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) boss Joseph Ngisa.
It was immediately taken to the Airports police station armoury.
No arrests were made.
Is someone behind these false bombs alert to bring East Africa’s biggest airport down?