The flight,
originally bound for Istanbul from New York, has now safely
departed, Halifax Stanfield International Airport said on
Twitter.
Security officials have been on high alert since Islamic State
militants claimed responsibility for attacks this month in Paris
that killed 130 people. Russia has said the group was also
responsible for the downing on Oct. 31 of a plane returning to
St. Petersburg from the Sharm al-Sheikh resort in Egypt.
The Turkish Airlines plane had been diverted after a threat was
received at 10:50 p.m. ET on Saturday evening, the Nova Scotia
branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Twitter. The
plane landed safely and police said they searched it using dogs.
"The investigation into the threat is ongoing," the RCMP
tweeted.
The incident comes after another flight leaving the United
States recently was diverted to Canada following a threat.
Two Air France flights bound for Paris from the United States
were diverted for several hours on Tuesday following anonymous
bomb threats that turned out to be false. One of the flights,
which had left Washington, was diverted to Halifax, but no
explosives were found.. The other, from Los Angeles, was
diverted to Salt Lake City.
Separately on Sunday, a WestJet Airlines Ltd <WJA.TO> flight
leaving Halifax bound for Calgary was searched following another
bomb threat, police said. But nothing was found and the flight
was cleared for departure.
(Editing by Andrew Bolton)
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