A Sri Lankan national living in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong has been identified as the man allegedly responsible for a bomb scare on a flight from Melbourne.
The man allegedly tried to enter the cockpit while claiming to have a bomb shortly after takeoff on a Malaysian Airlines flight late last night.
The 25-year-old is due to face Melbourne Magistrates Court later today, but Victoria's Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said they are not treating it as a terrorism incident.
Ashton revealed the man is believed to have checked out of a psychiatric facility in Melbourne earlier yesterday.
Because he was in the facility voluntarily, there was nothing to stop him leaving.
Malaysia Airlines confirmed the incident on flight MH128, which left Melbourne at 11.11pm before performing a small loop and landing again at 11.47pm.
The passenger was overpowered by the plane's crew and later arrested at Melbourne's airport, Malaysia's Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP.
"It is not a hijack. One disruptive passenger tried to enter the plane's cockpit," he said.
"The passenger... claimed to have a bomb. But it was not a bomb but a powerbank (battery charger)."
Ashton also defended the long wait passengers endured on the tarmac before police came on board to arrest the man.
"In some of those circumstances, if we had an incident where there were further explosives that were triggered, we could have had a mass casualty incident," he said.
"There were 337 passengers on that plane, plus crew, and we could have had a very serious incident.
"That was avoided through having a proper approach to getting the passengers off."
Police said the suspected bomb was just a speaker wrapped in plastic.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said his staff had reached out to Malaysia Airlines to offer counselling support.
"I want to take this opportunity to thank the crew and those very brave passengers who actually subdued this person, and indeed thank every single passenger for their patience, and you can imagine how traumatic that would have been to go through that experience," Andrews said.
Andrews said the arrested man had been Australia on a student visa studying to be a chef.
"His history would appear to have mental illness, we do not believe this is terrorist related at the moment," Superintendent Tony Langdon told reporters on the tarmac.
Post time 1-6-2017 08:56 AM
