Bomb Threat That Sparked Australian Air Emergency Was A Hoax, Police Say

SYDNEY, July 27 (AFP) - A bomb threat that forced a United Airlines 747 jet to make an emergency return to Sydney Airport was a hoax, police said late Tuesday.
Police superintendent Peter O'Brien said passengers and crew aboard the flight had been cleared of writing the hoax note which triggered a fullscale security alert along Australia's eastern seaboard.
"We have been carrying out our investigations since the plane landed and I'm quite satisfied that it is a hoax," O'Brien told reporters.
"There have been no persons detained and our specific screening process happened without incident."
Transport Minister John Anderson said earlier that the note, which was found aboard the Los Angeles-bound United Airlines flight 840 "implied that there might be a bomb on board".
The flight left Sydney International Airport in the afternoon with 246 passengers and 18 crew on board.
But 90 minutes into the trip, the jet's captain aborted the flight after the note was found near the toilet by another passenger and "handed in", Anderson said.
New South Wales police refused to confirm where the note had been found or what it had been written on.
"An unspecified and undefined hoax was found onboard the plane and the captain used his judgment to return to Sydney," O'Brien said.
However, he said it was safe to assume the note had not been left on board from a previous flight.
Investigations were continuing in order to find who wrote the note, but all passengers and crew on board the plane had been cleared since the plane returned to Sydney, he said.
"Every crew member and every passenger had to undergo our specific screening process, and all those persons have been processed without incident," O'Brien said.
But he said the screening process did not include a handwriting analysis of all passengers and crew.
The passengers will continue on to Los Angeles at 11.00 am (0200 GMT) on Wednesday.