10 injured after bomb scare on plane

JAKARTA: At least 10 passengers on a flight preparing to take off from Borneo were injured, most of them with broken bones and head wounds, after panicked ensued when a man claimed there was a bomb on board, Indonesian police said.

Passengers overheard the 26-year-old man, Frantinus Nirigi, telling a flight attendant there was a bomb on the Lion Air Boeing 737, which was to carry 189 passengers to Jakarta on Monday night, said West Kalimantan police spokesman Nanang Purnomo.

An eventual inspection of the plane found no explosives.

After Nirigi made the bomb claim, another passenger broke open the emergency exits, enabling panicked passengers to flee the aircraft, Purnomo said.

He and Nirigi were both arrested soon after.

Video posted online showed dozens of people standing on the plane’s right wing.

Some slid down the right engine and landed on the tarmac.

Purnomo said eight passengers were hospitalised with broken bones and head wounds, while two others had minor injuries.

Police did not provide details on how the passengers were injured.

In video taken by a passenger

I asked passengers to immediately leave the plane calmly and orderly, but instead they pushed each other and scrambled out of the plane. Fligh attendant Cindy

and posted online, a flight attendant identified only as Cindy told the airport authorities that passengers were pushing each other after the captain asked them to leave the plane immediately.

“I asked passengers to immediately leave the plane calmly and orderly, but instead they pushed each other and scrambled out of the plane,” she said.

Airline spokesman Danang Mandala said in a statement that the one-hour flight was delayed because a panicked passenger opened both emergency exits on the right side of the aircraft without instructions from the cabin crew. — AP