Bomb threat emails strain RGIA staff, disrupt flights in December
HYDERABAD: A spate of bomb threat emails in December placed sustained pressure on security agencies and airlines at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, even as all the alerts were later declared hoaxes, police said.
Cyberabad police registered 16 bomb threat cases at the airport this month, including one received late on Monday. Each threat triggered full security protocols, inconveniencing passengers and stretching airport resources. Three international flights were diverted following similar alerts, officials said.
Around midnight on Monday, a representative of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd lodged a complaint with RGIA police after an email warned of explosives on board KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight KLM 873. The aircraft landed at 1.12 IST.
Central Industrial Security Force personnel carried out anti-sabotage checks on the aircraft and screened passengers. “No suspicious material was found. It was a hoax, and a case has been registered,” RGIA police said.
Earlier this month, three flights two IndiGo services from Madina and Kuwait, and a Kuwait Airways flight from Kuwait to Hyderabad were diverted to Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Muscat after similar threat emails were received.
Before Monday’s incident, 15 threat emails had reached RGIA through the airport’s customer support email this month. Investigators found that the senders used anonymity-focused email services such as mail2tor.email and ProtonMail, besides spoofed domains of media organisations. Some emails were generated using Tormail and routed through virtual private networks, complicating efforts to trace the accused.
“More than half a dozen emails were sent using the same name. We are analysing technical details to identify those responsible,” an official said.
Police said each threat email set in motion a standard operating procedure. The alert is first routed to the Airport Predictive Operations Centre, which informs the Security Operations Control Centre operated by the CISF. The Bomb Threat Assessment Committee then evaluates the credibility of the threat. In cases where emails mention specific timings or locations, flights are either diverted or subjected to detailed inspection at the origin or destination.
More than 50 personnel are deployed for checks for each threat, significantly increasing the operational burden on airlines and security agencies, police said.
Twenty-two of the 28 hoax bomb threat cases registered at the RGIA police station in 2025 have been transferred to the cyber-crime police station in recent days. The remaining cases will be transferred shortly.
