Gatwick bomb hoaxer jailed

A passenger who made a hoax bomb call because he was late for a flight from Gatwick to Los Angeles on Norwegian was jailed last week for 10 months. Jacob Meir Abdellak, a French national, caused a 90min delay to the aircraft.

He rang police minutes before the flight was due to leave after arriving significantly late and becoming abusive when staff denied him boarding. He was told to return on another date to rearrange his journey.

Abdellak, 47, was arrested at Gatwick later the same month as he attempted to board another flight to the US. He was charged with communicating false information regarding a noxious substance likely to create serious risk to human health.

Gatwick police said: “The consequences of making [such] allegations at densely populated locations such as airports are well documented, and Abdellak's sentence serves as a warning this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.”

• Nine aircraft in Chilean, Peruvian and Argentinian airspace were forced to make emergency landings over bomb threats last week, Chile’s Civil Aviation Authority said on Saturday.

Chile’s capital Santiago was either the point of origin or the destination for five of the flights. The authority said a total of 11 threats were made, but officials deemed two “fictitious” as they related to flights that were not operating.

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