Several major Canadian airports experienced disruptions early Thursday morning following bomb threats prompting temporary evacuations and security sweeps.
According to Nav Canada, the threats impacted operations at six major airports: Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Calgary. As a precaution, the control tower at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) was evacuated and thoroughly searched by Richmond RCMP with the aid of police dogs. No threat was found, and officials later confirmed the report was a false alarm with no risk to public safety.
In Montreal and Ottawa, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration implemented brief ground stops, which were lifted around 7:40 a.m. Operations gradually resumed shortly after. Toronto Pearson Airport remained unaffected and continued normal operations throughout the incident.
The bomb threats come just days after staffing shortages caused significant delays at Vancouver International Airport over the Canada Day long weekend, with more than 200 flights delayed and 23 canceled, according to The Vancouver Sun.
In response to growing demands and recent staffing challenges, Nav Canada says it is actively expanding its workforce. Since September 2023, the organization has added over 450 employees—including 230 air traffic controllers—and currently has more than 500 individuals in training nationwide.
It seems some of these social/terrorist misfits have difficulty reading a calendar. If their stated goal is to disrupt air travel and commerce then they missed it by a couple of days. Canada day is July 1st, not July 3. We need a royal commission to study this and perhaps enact legislation to set up remedial training classes for these social misfits (with government subsidized expenses). Ya, we the North!
I think everyone would be delighted to find out that it was merely social misfits pranking. No doubt the safety professionals are concerned that it was a security probe to identify weaknesses in the system and its responses. Why do you think unvetted pax are required to have their shoes x-rayed at airport security?
Way back in the early '70s, another AF pilot and I were tasked with delivering a T-33a from Eielson AFB, Fairbanks, AK to Elmendorf AFB, Anchorage AK for wing spar modification. We had a nice weekend in the big city and, on Monday morning, checked in for our commercial flight back to Fairbanks.
We were wearing bright orange flight suits, carrying helmets and masks, parachutes, and our travel pod, a 6 foot something aluminum torpedo-shaped device which hangs under the aircraft. We got funny looks from the airline staff, and were told we could not take the parachutes into the cabin; everything except for our helmets had to go in the cargo compartment.
After we’d boarded, a bomb threat was phoned in to the airport and all flights were grounded for a time. All passengers deplaned and, after identifying their baggage, “Yes, that’s my torpedo and parachute”, we reboarded. That happened all over the airport and we were soon back in the air.
The bomb threat turned out to be a hoax.
It’s a method of war.
In their case domestic activist, in some cases foreign activity including intrusion via Internet - Iran and Russia do that.