Bomb threat on JL006 from Tokyo to New York on August 1 2012

Today's Japan Airlines (JAL) flight JL006 from Tokyo Narita (NRT) to New York JFK (JFK) had turned around and returned to NRT due to a bomb threat received. According to local news reports, JAL received the bomb threat at around 13:26 JST, about 2 hours after takeoff. The email states there are planted explosive on flights to New York. For security reasons, they have decided to turn around and go back to NRT.

The plane with 247 passengers and 18 crew members landed safely at NRT at 20:08 JST. No suspicious objects were found after a thorough search. All passengers were transferred to another aircraft and departed to JFK again at 22:36 JST with an estimated arrival time of 21:46 EST. The flight is delayed for about 10.5 hours as a result.


JL005 from JFK to NRT on August 1 2012 is also delayed to the next day due to the late arrival of aircraft (Thanks Patrick for notifying me this morning!). The new estimated departure time is 08:00 EST on August 2 2012. 


It is so sad that people will make threats like this. Hopefully the police will be able to track down and arrest the sender of the email as soon as possible. 


But the good part of the news is the flight to JFK is full (well other than no one was injured and flight landed safely)! JAL uses 777-300ER with W82 config on the JFK route. There are only 246 seats and they were carrying 247 passengers (probably at least one of the passengers is an infant)! 


Sources: 
JAL website (Flight Return Notice, Flight Delay Notice)
Yomiuri Online (Japanese)
Sankei (japanese)