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Helsinki flight delayed after Tallinn Airport bomb scare

The Tallinn Airport, Estonia’s largest, was evacuated on Saturday on the suspicion that there was a bomb in the premises. A flight from Tallinn to Helsinki was one of many delayed by the incident.

Lentoaseman sisäänkäynti
Image: Richard Sowersby / AOP

A bomb scare forced the evacuation of the Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport on Saturday. The airport was closed shortly after noon for a thorough inspection by the police’s special operations unit, and reopened in the afternoon after a search for explosives came up empty.

Many of the incoming and departing flights from the airport were delayed by the evacuation, including a flight that was due to land in Helsinki at 2:20 pm.

According to the local Postimees newspaper, a man speaking Russian called the airport at around noon and threatened to set off a bomb. Everyone in the facility was promptly evacuated and all of the flights were temporarily suspended.

The Tallinn Airport is the largest airport in Estonia and serves as a hub for the national airline Nordica, as well as a secondary hub for the Latvian low-cost carrier AirBaltic. Approximately 215,000 passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport in September 2016.