Fighter Jets Scramble: American Airlines Delhi Flight Diverts Thousands Of Miles To Rome Over Security Threat

American Airlines flight 292 from New York JFK to Delhi made an emergency landing in Rome following a security threat, that many outlets are referring to as a bomb threat. The Boeing 787-9 was escorted by fighter jets on the way in.

The plane made a U-turn and did a lot of backtracking from the Caspian Sea to divert to Rome. If there were a real security risk and the plane needed to get on the ground quickly, they wouldn’t have turned around to fly to far east. This is highly suggestive of a pro forma diversion, that they were following Indian security directives rather than acting on a real belief that there was a threat.

According to American Airlines,

AA 292, operating from New York to Delhi, has been diverted to Rome due to a potential security threat onboard. We are working closely with local authorities and will provide updates as the situation develops. We appreciate the patience and cooperation of our passengers.

Passengers will be stranded for a bit in Rome, because crew will certainly be exceeding their maximum duty hours. They aren’t going to be permitted to just offload a passenger, refuel and take off again. So this is a huge inconvenience.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. And of course Gary has to throw in “pro forma” to sound like he’s the smart guy here when it’s obvious if it were a bigger deal they wouldn’t have backtracked. Being it was going to India, it might’ve been a stink bomb.

    Just say AA has more resources to re-crew and utilize in FCO than they would in DHL anyways.

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