71 students, flying home to Dublin from Paris, were caught up in a bomb ruse, causing their flight to be diverted to Scotland. They were aboard a Ryanair FR25 plane. The cabin crew received a note with a bomb threat. The captain immediately contacted the National Air Traffic Service and received orders to land at Prestwick, an airport designated for emergency cases in the UK.
The children arrived in Dublin around midnight on April 12. They greeted their parents with tears.
8 teachers were accompanying the students on the plane. There were a total of 172 passengers.
The ordeal began at 13.30 the previous day. Around that time news of the bomb threat began to circulate. Fifteen minutes later a Tornado F3 fighter craft intercepted the civil air traffic plane. Two other Tornadoes were dispatched shortly thereafter. The terrified passengers and six crewmembers were evacuated soon afterwards. They were questioned by anti-terror officials. Police dogs searched the plane, which was parked at a distance from the terminal. Nothing was discovered, and no one has been arrested in connection with the incident. Around 4 hours later Prestwick airport reopened for landings. The first plane touched down an hour later.
The students were on a 10-day school trip to Prague, Salzburg and Paris. The mother of one of the students, Betty Howe, complained that she received no assistance from the air carrier. She claimed that Ryanair employees hung up on her in the time of crisis. They gave her an emergency number, but she couldn’t get through, and she wasn’t able to find information at the company website either. 24-year old Frenchwoman Lucy Auburtin, who was aboard the plane, described it as a horrifying experience. The passengers were crying and screaming.
Martine Houdusse from France was another person dissatisfied with Ryanair’s reaction. She waited for her husband from 13:30 until 23:30 and received no information from them whatsoever. Finally she got a message from her husband, shedding some light on the situation.
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