Saudi authorities found no explosives on a Royal Jordanian flight that made an emergency landing in the kingdom Monday after a bomb alert, an airport source told AFP.
"Saudi explosive experts did not find any bomb on board the Jordanian plane and the passengers are safe and sound," said an official at Buraida Airport at Qasseem, 350 kilometers (200 miles) north of the capital Riyadh.
"It was a false alarm. ... The passengers are now in the airport waiting to take off on the same plane for Doha," said the official, who said the Airbus A320 was carrying 83 passengers and crewmembers.
The pilot of the plane, which was traveling between Amman and Doha, had decided to land in Qasseem after receiving "a bomb alert," passengers told the Qatari television station Al-Jazira.
Passenger Mohamed Makhlouf told Al-Jazira that about 20 ambulances and police cars surrounded the plane immediately after the travelers got off after a 45 minute-delay, which put the passengers in a state of panic.
"The pilot just told us that we were going to going to land at Qasseem... because of heavy air traffic at Doha," Makhlouf told the station by telephone.
Later, the captain, who was not identified, told the passengers that the information was not correct, and the suspected bomb was aboard another Royal Jordanian plane heading then for Abu Dhabi.
The report did not give details on the other bomb.
Makhlouf said the police had asked passengers to leave all their carry-on luggage on the plane as they inspected it.
A Qatar Airways flight, going from Doha to Amman, was hijacked September 14 to Hael, about 700 kilometers (420 miles) north of Riyadh. The Iraqi hijacker turned himself in to Saudi authorities – (Several Sources)
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