Flight forced to make emergency landing in Barcelona after network name ‘bomb threat’

A Turkish Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport on Thursday after a passenger created an in-flight wireless network whose name contained a bomb threat, an airline spokesperson said.

The spokesperson, Yahya Üstün, confirmed that as the Turkish Airlines flight TK1853 from Istanbul neared Barcelona’s international airport, "it was detected that a passenger established an in-flight internet access point and set the network name to include a bomb threat."

This discovery prompted the immediate emergency landing of the Airbus 321.

The airline said the return flight would operate normally.

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Spain’s Civil Guard police force launched an investigation into the incident and said no explosive was found on board.

Officials confirmed that operations at the airport have since returned to normal.