A Milan-bound Germanwings plane had to be stopped on the runway and evacuated at the Cologne Bonn airport after air traffic controllers received a bomb threat.
The pilot of flight 4U826 to Milan’s Malpensa airport was contacted by air traffic controllers after the German police received a bomb threat.
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The threat was reportedly emailed to the airport 15 minutes prior to the plane’s scheduled departure, reported the Al Jazeera.
The airlines said in a statement: "The tower contacted the pilot immediately who then aborted taxiing and directed the aircraft to a position provided for in such cases."
The airlines also informed that all passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the plane, which was scheduled to take off at 6.20pm.
Following the evacuation, the plane was inspected by authorities and trained dogs. While the airlines did not reveal the number of passengers on board, Spiegel-Online reported that the plane had 132 passengers, including six crew members.
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By GlobalDataGermanwings later released another statement saying that nothing had been found in the examination of the baggage and the aircraft.
Fully owned by Lufthansa, Germanwings said that it would arrange for the passengers to be flown to Milan on a different aircraft on Sunday night.
The bomb threat comes less than three weeks after a Germanwings flight crashed into the French Alps killing all 150 people on board, current investigation into which, revealed the plane’s co-pilot deliberately crashing it into the French mountains.
