Mumbai Bound Flight Returns To Amsterdam

A Northwest Airlines airplane on a flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai returned to the airport after the pilot declared an unspecified security alert. Dutch F-16 fighters escorted the aircraft on the return. There is no word exactly what triggered the alert as yet, but it appears that several people have been removed from the aircraft.

The pilot of Flight NW0042 to Bombay radioed Schiphol for permission to return and for a military escort as it was flying over Germany shortly after leaving Amsterdam, said spokeswoman Pamela Kuypers.

Several passengers on the flight to Bombay were taken off the plane for questioning, and others were questioned at the gate, Kuypers said. Routine security measures were swiftly put into place.

Customs police were investigating, she said.

Customs police spokesman Rick Hirs said it was not yet clear why the plane had returned. He said no one had been arrested and there were no injuries.

The Dutch National Terrorism Coordinator's Office had been informed of the incident but said there was no cause to raise the national threat level, said spokeswoman Judith Sluiter.

"It is the same as it was before — light threat," Sluiter said.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board the plane, but a Northwest DC-10 has a seating capacity of 273, and Kuypers said the plane was full "as far as I know."

Kuypers said the aircraft parked at the gate when it returned to allow all other passengers to disembark.

I'll continue to follow this one and will update as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: The linked story has been updated with the following information:

"A number of them behaved, in the opinion of the crew, in a suspicious manner," said a Defense Ministry statement. "As a result, the captain asked to return to Schiphol. The customs police have taken a number of people off the plane for questioning."