A Russian man who was refused alcohol on a domestic flight threatened to blow up the plane if his demands weren’t met.
Andrei Sidyakin, 39, a hockey player from the Russian Hockey League team Monetka in Yekaterinburg, accosted flight attendants to give him vodka, but things turned chaotic when staff refused to serve him his beverage of choice.
According to a post on Telegram by online Russian newspaper Mash, one of the most popular Russian-language channels on the instant messaging service, Sidyakin “generally behaved defiantly” while on the flight and “pestered” the flight attendants to bring him a drink. He was apparently warned by staff before he “went for broke.”
Sidyakin told flight attendants that he had an explosive device, then tried to open the plane’s door.
The flight attendants had to spend the rest of the flight, which doesn’t appear to have been diverted, looking for any evidence of a bomb or weapon.
Upon arrival in Moscow, security officers from Sheremetyevo Airport and police officers boarded the plane and also searched it. Sidyakin was not detained but was denied further travel to Ural and told he had to find a different way there.
The response by airport and airline staff was remarkably different than a flight in January from Russia to India that was diverted and stopped for several hours after a bomb threat was made on board.
A chartered flight from Moscow to Goa with 244 people was diverted to Jamnagar airport in India after air traffic control (ATC) at an airport in Goa received an email warning that there was a bomb on board the Russian plane
“We got an alert from the Jamnagar ATC that a Russian flight was making an emergency landing in Jamnagar. Therefore, we rushed to the airport,” said Premsukh Delu, superintendent of Jamnagar district police, according to Indian Express.
amnagar police rushed to the airport, where all 236 passengers on board Azur Air flight 4501 were ordered to evacuate immediately. The plane was cordoned off by police, Indian Air Force and Army personnel. A bomb disposal squad was called to search the plane while passengers and crew waited to see if they could continue traveling.
However, like Sidyakin’s threat, it turned out to be a hoax after 12 hours of searching. The flight departed for Goa 15 hours after it was forced to make the emergency landing.
“The teams scanned the entire plane and luggage of passengers and nothing suspicious was found, suggesting the threat was a hoax,” said Jamnagar District Collector Sourabh Pardhi, per the Indian Express.
