Warnings to Scandinavian Line Taken Seriously : Bomb Threats Spark Air Security Alert

Three bomb threats--at least one apparently linked to Stockholm’s role in the opening of a U.S.-PLO dialogue--prompted Scandinavian Airlines System to mount one of its tightest security operations ever on Monday, disrupting the airline’s flights worldwide.

An English-speaking caller telephoned the airline and said an internal flight from Gothenburg in western Sweden would be sabotaged on Monday morning, the airline reported.

It was the third threat SAS has made public.

Although there were delays on all SAS flights Monday because of security checks, no signs of sabotage were found.

“But we are taking all the threats seriously, and security is stringent at all our airports,” airline spokesman John Herbert said.

On Saturday, the airline said it had received a letter saying an SAS plane on a domestic route would be attacked because of Sweden’s mediating role that led to the United States opening direct talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

That threat was followed by a tip-off from Interpol, the international police organization, that an unidentified group may be planning to attack one of its planes, causing SAS to alert its staff around the world.

Herbert said Swedish secret police had not been able to specify who had made the threat, which came from Budapest.

Herbert said there was no information suggesting that either threat was linked to last month’s crash of a Pan Am Boeing 747 in Scotland that killed all 259 on board and at least 11 people on the ground.

He said the extra security had already caused severe delays and would mean extra costs for the airline, in which the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark share a 50% stake.

As a result of security measures following the threats, some charter flights have been delayed by up to 13 hours. Scheduled flights have suffered much shorter delays.

Swedish newspapers speculated that an Iranian fundamentalist group was planning an attack as revenge for Sweden’s recent involvement in the negotiations with the PLO.

Herbert said he had no such information.

“Right now we have no idea who is behind this. But Interpol has advised us to consider the latest threat seriously,” he added.

Sweden in early December arranged a meeting between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and a group of prominent American Jews, and soon afterward the PLO made clear its implicit recognition of Israel and renunciation of terrorism.

Sweden was instrumental in coaxing Arafat to clarify the PLO stand at a news conference in Geneva, a move that persuaded Washington to open talks for the first time in 13 years.

A spokesman for the West German state attorney’s office in Frankfurt, where Pan Am flight 103 originated with a smaller plane Dec. 21, said Monday that investigators have found that freight, including four bags of U.S. military mail, was loaded on the plane without security checks.

The spokesman said the freight was loaded on the Pan Am 727 that flew the first leg of Flight 103 from Frankfurt and transferred to the ill-fated Boeing 747 in London, again without a security check.

He added, however, that the mail bags were “constantly guarded by U.S. military personnel.”

The West German weekly Bunte said Monday that a document box from Manufacturers Hanover Trust also was loaded in Frankfurt and transferred in London without being checked.

The German spokesman said investigators are still examining the possibility that a bomb was loaded on Flight 103 in Frankfurt but so far have found “no hot trail.”

Two months ago, police discovered an arms cache of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in Frankfurt that included the Czech-made plastic explosive Semtex and an altitude detonator. Semtex or a plastic explosive like it is suspected of causing the Pan Am crash.