Bomb joke grounds passenger

2009-01-06 16:10

Taipei - Police detained a Taiwanese woman on Tuesday for joking that there was a bomb in her hand luggage.

The woman, identified only by her surname Wu, was preparing to fly from Taipei to Singapore on a Singaporean Airlines flight at the Taoyuan International Airport.

After she had boarded the plane, an air hostess helped her put her carry-on luggage into the overhead bin and quipped: "It seems kind of heavy. What's inside?"

"There is a bomb inside," Wu joked.

The air hostess called the flight captain who ordered Wu and her luggage removed from the plane for security checks.

The check proved that Wu had no explosives in either her checked or carry-on luggage, but she was still arrested for endangering flight safety by making the joke, the Taiwan's Central News Agency said.

The flight was delayed for 10 minutes because of the hoax.

- DPA