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Two Air France flights diverted because of bomb threats

Flights from Los Angeles and Washington state were ordered to land at Salt Lake City and Canada's east coast respectively

Caroline Mortimer
Wednesday 18 November 2015 03:44 EST
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The Air France flights diverted to Utah and the Canadian east coast
The Air France flights diverted to Utah and the Canadian east coast (Getty Images)

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Two Air France flights bound for Paris from the US have been forced to divert after receiving anonymous bomb threats .

One flight from Los Angeles was diverted to Salt Lake City and another which took off from Washington state was forced to land in Halifax on Canada's east coast on Tuesday evening.

No other details have been released on the nature of the threats have been released.

Both planes landed safely in North America and authorities in both the US and Canada have searched the planes with dogs.

One passenger on the flight from Los Angeles, Keith Rosso, described the plane taking "a pretty sharp right" toward Salt Lake City.

He said: "The flight attendants quickly came by and cleared plates, then there was an announcement that we were making an emergency landing..."

In Halifax, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Mark Skinner said there were 262 people on board the Washington plane when it received an anonymous threat.

He said: "We received a complaint of a bomb threat and we responded to it.

"They have to go to through the plane. I don't think there is any timeline on when that plane might get back in the air."

It follows last week's attacks in Paris which killed 129 people and a Russian plane crash in Sinai in Egypt killing 224 people in what is now believed to have been a terror attack.

Additional reporting by AP

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