Man banned from airport after bomb hoax

A teenager has been banned from Doncaster's Robin Hood airport for life after informing security officials he had a hand grenade concealed in his shoe.

The 18-year-old was due to board a 2.25pm Thomsonfly flight to Lyon, but was detained after making the comment in the airport's security area.

South Yorkshire Police were called to the scene but no explosives were found.

Nevertheless, the man will no longer be allowed to fly out of Doncaster following an incident Thomsonfly said was the first of its kind it had experienced.

South Yorkshire Police hailed the security procedure at Robin Hood airport, particularly the cooperation between the police, airport and airlines.

A spokeswoman told the Halifax Evening Courier: "There are procedures in place to deal with incidents of this nature… all reacted to this situation in a manner that demonstrates the effectiveness of these contingency arrangements."

© Adfero Ltd

Comments

[Geoff Barlow]

I can't believe there are halfwits out there who still think this kind of thing is funny. Not long ago, my wife and I were held up and nearly missed our flight to Paris thanks to the antics of a similarly crass 'comedian' who was in front of us in the queue. What do these idiots expect? Chortles all round and a congratulatory slap on the back from airport security officials, before being bumped up to first class for being the next Noel Coward?

The old "I've only got a couple of bombs in my case" gag was contemptibly lame even before the war against terror kicked off. But the joker can count himself lucky - if he'd cracked wise about hand grenades in the US they probably would have whisked him off to Cuba in an orange jumpsuit before he had time to wipe the idiot smirk off his face.