Schiphol airport: Suspicious situation on Air Europa plane was false alarm, airline says
A security alert at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport that prompted an investigation by the Dutch military police was a false alarm, according to the airline involved.
Police said on Wednesday night that they were investigating a suspicious situation aboard an aircraft, with emergency workers flooding the travel hub, according to Dutch media.
SkyTeam, a consortium of airlines, confirmed in a statement to The Independent that the aircraft belonged to Air Europa but was painted in SkyTeam livery.
Air Europa, a Spanish company, tweeted a little more than an hour after the alert, that it had been a false alarm.
It said: “False alarm. This afternoon on the Amsterdam-to-Madrid flight an alert setting hijacking protocols in motion was mistakenly activated. Nothing has happened, all passengers are safe and hoping to take off soon. We apologise.”
The police – known as the Marechaussee – said on Twitter that passengers and crew the aircraft had been safely taken off, about an hour after it first said it had responded to the security alert.
“Investigation on site continues,” the force added.
Last year, more than 100 airlines flew from Schiphol to some 327 countries, and carried 71.1 million passengers, the airport’s website said.
