WestJet bomb threat made from Nova Scotia, RCMP say

RCMP have determined the bomb threat that led to the evacuation of a WestJetflight travelling from Halifax to Calgary came from within Nova Scotia.

After searching the plane,Nova ScotiaRCMPsay they didn't findevidence of a bomb on the plane whichwas set to fly out at7:30 a.m.

WestJetflight 229 leftHalifaxStanfieldInternational Airportat 10:27 a.m.

"The threat was received at 6:41 a.m. When the threat was received people had boarded the plane," said Const. Mark Skinner. "So it was simplya matter of just getting up and leaving the plane, it was still attached to the sky bridge."

Six crew members and 69 passengers were removed from the plane, which was about about half full, Skinner said.

"At that point in time the airport authority was able to push the plane back away from the terminal and police were able to get on and start conducting a search," he said.

Police finished searching the aircraft and luggage around 9:15a.m. and say they foundnothing dangerous.

Passengers then re-boarded the plane as it prepared to takeoff.

Police aren't releasing any details about the origin of the bomb threat, but they say it wasn't related to a bomb threat against at Turkish Airlines flight that wasdiverted to Halifax early Sunday morning.

No explosives were found on that plane either. Theflight has now continued on its way to Istanbul.

"They're two separateinvestigations in that respect, or at least we believe they're different at this point in time," said Skinner."When a threat is received like this we need to treat it as a specific and crediblethreat untilproven otherwise."

Last week an Air France plane had to make a similar detour to Halifax because of a bomb threat. No bomb was discovered on that flight either.