A passenger who triggered a bomb scare on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow has been jailed for three years.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that James Glen, aged 38, was drunk when he told an attendant on the Etihad flight that a fellow passenger had a gun and had threatened to blow himself up.
RAF fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane, which was diverted from Heathrow to Stansted airport, where it landed safely on January 24, the same day that 35 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at Moscow airport.
The Etihad flight was carrying 163 passengers and 15 crew.
After the hearing, chief inspector Graham Stubbs said: "Although this was probably a one-off act of drunken stupidity, Mr Glen’s actions caused a large number of people a great deal of anxiety and inconvenience, as well as wasting a considerable amount of public and private money.
"I now hope that anyone who thinks about making a joke around issues of security within the aviation arena reflects carefully upon the fate of Mr Glen, before doing something they subsequently regret."
By Linsey McNeill
