London/Hyderabad, June 16: A Lufthansa flight to Hyderabad was forced to make a U-turn and returned to land at Frankfurt Airport due to a bomb threat, the airline said on Monday.
Flight LH752 departed from Germany around 14.14 local time Sunday and was scheduled to land at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the early hours of Monday but flight tracker data showed a diversion a few hours into the flight.
Lufthansa said the passengers had been provided overnight accommodation in Frankfurt and are scheduled to resume their journey to Hyderabad on Monday morning.
“Out of an abundance of caution, Lufthansa flight LH752 from Frankfurt to Hyderabad returned to its point of departure after authorities were made aware of a bomb threat posted on social media,” Lufthansa said in a statement.
“The safety of our passengers and crew is Lufthansa’s highest priority. Affected passengers were provided with accommodation in Frankfurt and will be continuing their journey to Hyderabad today,” the statement said.
In Hyderabad, airport sources on Monday said, “A bomb threat email targeting Lufthansa flight LH 752 was received at the Hyderabad airport at 18:01 hrs on 15th June 2025.”
They said a bomb threat assessment committee was formed and all procedures were followed as per standard operating procedure. In the interest of safety, the airline was advised to divert back to the origin or the nearest suitable airport.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner’s return mid-air came as a Chennai-bound British Airways Flight BA35, also a Dreamliner, returned to London Heathrow Airport on Sunday over a “technical issue”.
“The aircraft returned to Heathrow as a standard precaution after reports of a technical issue,” British Airways said in a statement.
“The flight landed safely with crew and customers disembarking as they normally would, and our teams worked hard to get their journeys back on track as soon as possible,” the statement added.
Airline sources highlighted that this was an emergency landing and that it is “not unusual” for an aircraft to return to its origin if there are reports of any technical issues.
On Sunday, a passenger on board the Hyderabad-bound flight told PTI from Frankfurt Airport that they were told that “Hyderabad hasn’t given permission to land the flight there”.
“It was a smooth flight and after about two hours in the air, we were told that we would be returning to Frankfurt,” said the passenger on her way from the US to visit her mother in Hyderabad.
A Frankfurt Airport spokesperson confirmed that LH752 had landed back in Germany and Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport received a message that the flight was returning to Frankfurt a short while after it had taken off from the German hub airport.
The flight’s bomb scare follows a Delhi-bound Air India Airbus A320 flight being forced to return to Phuket Airport for an emergency landing back in Thailand following a bomb threat on Friday.
It comes after Air India Flight AI171 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route to London Gatwick Airport crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing all but one of its 242 passengers and crew on board. The death toll from the crash rose to 270 over the weekend after the aircraft crashed into an inhabited area of the city. (PTI)
