Plane evacuated in Geneva following bomb threat

  • 14/10/2016
Airport terminal (iSTOCK)
Airport terminal (iSTOCK)

An Aeroflot passenger plane has been evacuated at Geneva airport in Switzerland and a Russian man has been arrested after saying there was a bomb on board, the Geneva prosecutor's office says.

The man told an airline ticket desk just before 1pm local time on Thursday that there was a bomb on a plane at the airport, it said in a statement.

"The aircraft, already preparing for take-off on the tarmac, was recalled to its stand. The passengers were taken off, nobody was hurt," it said.

"The man who initiated the threat has been detained by police. An investigation is underway."

An Aeroflot statement said it was Aeroflot flight 2381 from Geneva to Moscow and its passengers would be transferred to other aircraft for the journey.

The prosecutor's spokesman said there were 115 people on board, but he did not specify if that included flight crew.

The statement said a police bomb disposal team was checking the aircraft, which according to an airport spokesman was still standing empty on the tarmac.

The incident comes less than three months after the airport was put on high alert for half a day because of a woman who made a false bomb threat in a fit of jealousy over her husband and his mistress.

She was later jailed for three months and billed 90,000 Swiss francs ($A122,000) for wasting police time.

Several European cities have experienced real bomb attacks this year, including at Brussels airport in March and Istanbul's Ataturk airport in July.

Reuters