Suspicious package at Perth airport
May 4, 2008 - 5:55AM
Police have evacuated the Perth International Airport building and flights have been diverted after a suspicious package was found on a Malaysian Airlines flight.
Perth's Sunday Times newspaper says all outgoing flights are indefinitely delayed, and Air New Zealand and Emirates flights remain on the tarmac.
Police said all the last incoming international flights - Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Emirates - have landed safely at the domestic airport.
Police spokesman Neil Stanbury told the paper the evacuation began at about 6 pm (WST) on Saturday night after suspicious luggage from incoming Flight 125 was discovered.
The Malaysian Airlines plane landed at 3 pm and was due to leave for Kuala Lumpur as Flight 124 at 4.30 pm. Police had blocked all entrances to the airport and cars were backed up for several hundred metres on Horrie Miller Drive.
Hundreds of people were still arriving at the airport at 11 pm for late night flights but were unable to enter the airport as planes remained grounded.
Assistant Commissioner John McRoberts said a package, which was among unaccompanied freight on a Malaysian Airlines flight, was found on the bitumen underneath an aircraft.
Bomb squad technicians would move it to a safe place where it could be x-rayed, and the process was likely to take some time, he said.
Commissioner McRoberts said it was likely to be the biggest scale operation at the airport that he was aware of.
Perth Domestic Airport remains fully operational.
© 2008
AAP]