It was a tense and frustrating several hours for passengers on board a Flair Airlines flight that landed at Vancouver International Airport Friday night, as the RCMP were called in to investigate a "possible threat" received on a cell phone.
In a statement Saturday, the airport authority said flight 2799 arrived from Edmonton at 11:44 p.m. and was held on the taxiway for approximately an hour and 15 minutes while Mounties investigated a "security incident." The flight was ultimately cleared and passengers were allowed to disembark at around 2:15 a.m.
In a separate statement, the Richmond RCMP confirmed that officers were called to the airport and that an investigation is active and ongoing.
"An individual on this flight received electronic communications on their mobile device of a possible threat and promptly advised the proper authorities” said Cpl. Dennis Hwang.
“Threats or perceived threats, in any form, will be fully investigated. The safety of the flight crew, passengers, and the public will always be of paramount concern for us.”
A spokesperson for Flair Airlines, in an email to CTV News, said the flight crew called in the Mounties who boarded the plane and conducted a "brief investigation of suspicious activity in flight by a passenger" before clearing the flight to proceed to the gate.
No additional details about the incident have been provided.
Zachary Walker was one of the passengers on board and says little information was shared about the nature of the security issue during the hours between when the plane landed and when people were allowed to disembark.
"They took us to this far-flung area of the airport away from the terminal or any other planes. And then the captain came on the radio and said that there was a security threat," he told CTV News.
"We ended up sitting there for about an hour and a half and a couple of times the captain would come on and tell us that the RCMP was still figuring out a plan, that it was a security threat and that once they had that figured out we would be able to get on our way."
The lack of information made the wait tense and uncomfortable, he said, as everyone was ordered to remain seated for the duration of the delay.
"It was pretty scary. Everyone on the plane just kind of started talking to strangers next to them, you know, trying to figure out what's going on and give each other support," he said, adding that no one was allowed to stand up, use the washroom, or retrieve anything from their carry-on bags.
In the absence of an official explanation, Walker says passengers "sleuthed" the situation and settled on a possible explanation.
"They didn't tell us this, but someone on the plane had been air-dropping nudes of themselves. But then they were changing the name on the airdrop to threatening messages," he told CTV.
He shared a photo he took of another passenger's iPhone screen with a message saying AirDrop from BOMB ON PLANE and says other AirDrops featured derogatory and homophobic messages.
Walker said police did question people about whether they had been sending messages, urging whoever was responsible to come forward.
"We were just kind of sitting there being like, 'Well, I guess there's nothing we can do. We just have to hope and pray that it's a joke and that there's nothing seriously wrong with the plane or something on the plane," he said.
As far as Walker knows, no one was arrested. He also says no passengers were removed from the aircraft before it was cleared to move to the gate.
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Abigail Turner
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