Thatcher Plane Gets False Bomb Threat
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was hustled from her Royal Air Force jetliner at Heathrow Airport on Friday by Scotland Yard officers acting on a threat that a bomb was aboard.
No bomb was found, police said, and no one was injured in the emergency evacuation after the plane landed on a flight from Norway, where Thatcher had been visiting for two days.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said that a Norwegian newspaper “received a claim or threat that there was a bomb on board the flight” after the plane left Oslo.
“The emergency services greeted the plane at Heathrow when it landed. They got the 40 passengers off, including Mrs. Thatcher, and the plane was wheeled out to a remote, dark corner of the airfield for inspection.
“As far as we’re concerned, the emergency procedures have been gone through, downgraded and nothing has been found,” the spokesman said.
Special sniffer dogs were used to check the RAF VC-10 for explosives, the spokesman said.
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