RCMP, firefighters and paramedics responded to the Kelowna Airport around noon.
“The threat itself, I can’t divulge the nature of the threat, was specific to a departing flight,” RCMP Const. Kris Clark told reporters gathered at the airport. “Once it landed, it was held away from the terminal.”
While police tried to figure out if the threat was real, the 98 passengers were taken off the plane and put on buses parked away from the terminal building.
Clark says RCMP, along with a police service dog, searched the plane and the passengers’ luggage. The luggage of the passengers who were preparing to board the flight was searched as well.
“Nothing of note was found,” he says.
“We are confident that the threat was not confirmed,” Clark says. “The investigation is ongoing and a person of interest has been taken into custody.”
The man arrested at the airport has not been charged.
The terror attacks in eastern Canada recently did not change the way police reacted to the threat, according to Clark.
“This is something we are trained for. There are policies and procedures are in place for instances just like this and those policies and procedures were activated.”
The passengers held on the plane and then a bus for a total of three hours weren’t happy with the RCMP’s communication and were angry they were left in danger on a plane which might have had an explosive on board.
“We were left hanging. RCMP didn’t tell us nothing,” Steve Vadnais says. “First indication we got was from the pilot who said there was a threat to the plane. We didn’t get word about a bomb threat until we were actually on off the plane and in the buses.”
Fellow passenger Mike Wasalenkoff agrees, “When we got off the plane, that’s when they told us there had been a bomb threat.”
Const. Clark wouldn’t say if it was a bomb threat, “The nature of the threat has not been divulged and that’s subject to the ongoing investigation.”
Airport manager Sam Samaddar says the emergency coordination centre was activated when the threat was received, “We have protocols in our emergency procedures to deal with this specific threat we received today.”
The airport was in operation during the police incident although Samaddar says some flights were delayed. The aircraft, subject to the threat, was flown with just a crew to Calgary Saturday afternoon.
Story, Comments, Photos: http://infotel.ca
A person of interest is taken into custody at the Kelowna Airport, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014.
(HOWARD ALEXANDER /InfoTel Multimedia)
UPDATE 4 P.M.
Passengers aboard a WestJet flight that landed in Kelowna over the noon hour were relatively calm despite what is believed to have been a bomb threat.
The flight landed at Kelowna International Airport shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday with police, fire crews and BC Ambulance attendants standing by. The plane taxied to an area at the end of the runway, away from the terminal.
Castanet has learned two WestJet flights were checked by bomb sniffing dogs.
Sabrina Thievin, a passenger on the plane travelling from St. Albert, AB, spoke with Castanet News Director Trevor Rockliffe following what turned out to be a three hour ordeal.
"We landed about 12:35 or 12:40 and we sat on the plane for a couple of hours. Then we got taken onto buses...took all the luggage off...they brought the dogs on and they were sniffing the luggage.
Before they did that they moved the buses because we were pretty close to the luggage.
They brought us water, some cookies.
Everyone was really good. People weren't freaking out, it was great.
We just let the police and fireman do their jobs.
It was a long wait and not knowing was hard. Then they got a third bus in and brought us here.
It's a long day."
Thievin was asked the mood of the passengers while everyone waited, not knowing exactly what was going on.
Surprisingly we were commenting there was nobody freaking out..there was no one getting really pissed off.
The longer we were on the bus the harder it got. There were three small children and one of the girls was crying. It got hard for them.
A lady with a baby and some older people. People were getting a little impatient but the WestJet staff was great.
The police came on board and told us what was going on and we really got the feeling they were trying to keep us up to date with what was going on."
Thievin says many on board believed there was a bomb threat.
"That's what we heard. Some people said it was a bomb scare, some people said no but no one actually said for sure what it was.
Evidently the reason it took so long for us to get off the plane was because they had to find drivers for the buses and get the buses out. Then it took longer because the dogs were sniffing the on-going passengers luggage before they did ours since the threat was against that flight and not ours."
Thievin's travelling companion, Joyce Cameron, also from St. Albert, says people were relatively calm throughout.
"It was a long duration but overall everybody kept their sense of humour. Nobody was trying to scare anybody and we all just kept calm and thankful that hopefully it's over."
Cameron added events from earlier this week in Montreal and Ottawa went through her mind while they waited for the ordeal to conclude.
Planes are still not landing at YLW.
UPDATE 3:20 P.M.
Passengers from the WestJet flight are now in the terminal at Kelowna International Airport after a dog checked their luggage.
Fire and ambulance personnel have left the scene.
One female passenger was taken away by ambulance.
UPDATE 2:45 P.M.
A WestJet flight has landed safely at Kelowna International Airport after what Castanet has been told was a threat to the plane.
The plane parked at the far end of the runway away from the terminal where passengers were waiting to be loaded into waiting buses for transport to the terminal.
Luggage is being removed from the plane and collected onto the tarmac.
Devon, a passenger on the WestJet flight told Castanet News a bomb sniffing dog is going through everything.
She says it will be at least a half hour before they are able to move.
Several arrivals have been delayed.
Planes are now taking off, however, nothing has been landing.
More details as they become available.
Emergency crews are on standby at YLW, they are apparently waiting for a WestJet flight to land.
The press release from the airport states:
Kelowna Airport's Aircraft Rescue Firefighters, Kelowna Fire Department, BC Ambulance and RCMP are currently on scene for an unsubstantiated and unconfirmed emergency.
More details to follow, we have a reporter at the airport.
Passengers from a WestJet flight board a bus to be taken to the main terminal after the plane was directed to land at the far end of the runway. (Castanet.net) 
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