Hijack warning found on Air India flight at Kolkata airport

A hijack warning was found in a lavatory aboard a Mumbai-bound Air India flight at Kolkata airport on Wednesday, prompting passengers to leave the aircraft and security teams to move it to an isolation bay for inspection.

Kolkata airport director Vikram Singh said the note was discovered shortly before the flight’s scheduled 10:20 a.m. departure. He said it warned that the aircraft would be hijacked at 11:10 a.m. The note’s authenticity and the identity of its author have not been established in the reporting.

Passengers who had boarded were deboarded, and the aircraft was taken away from the regular airport area for security checks. Singh said precautionary measures were initiated. The reports do not establish what the inspection found or whether the aircraft was cleared to depart.

Some reports said the flight was AI 772 and described it as an Airbus A320neo. One report put the number of passengers at 93; that figure was not included in the other accounts. The aircraft was bound for Mumbai from Kolkata, and its departure status was not confirmed in the reports.

A separate account said airport security teams, including the Central Industrial Security Force, searched the aircraft...