Chile Arrests Two after Bomb Threats Ground Nine Planes

W460

Chilean police said Friday they had arrested two people for making bomb threats that forced the grounding of nine commercial flights the day before.

A 29-year-old man in the northern city of Antofagasta was arrested after police managed to "geo-reference telephone calls linked to threats of there being explosive devices on various flights," police chief Diego Rojas told reporters.

The flights involved Latam and Chilean low-cost carrier Sky Airlines and affected airspace above Chile, Peru and Argentina.

One Latam flight, with more than 80 passengers aboard, had to make an emergency landing in Lima, airport authorities there said.

The man, whom police named as Franco Sepulveda, made the calls after one of the airlines lost his baggage. 

"In the first instance there is information that we have to ratify, which indicates that this person would have planned a flight, would have left his suitcase and not got it back, and would have made these calls, annoyed with the company and the entire air traffic system," said Rojas. 

As authorities dealt with the chaos caused by the initial threats, police arrested another man at Santiago airport after he said he was carrying a bomb in his hand luggage. 

"In the ebb and flow of news, someone found it very nice to make a joke and say he was carrying an explosive device in his luggage," Rojas said. 

"He was immediately arrested and checked. He had nothing and said it was a joke."

The director general of Chile's civil aviation authority Victor Villalobos said a total of 11 threats were made on Thursday, two of which he described as "fictitious" and nine of which involved existing flights.

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