INDONESIA: Lion Air Fake Bomb Threat, Passengers Break Bones And Suffer Wounds As They Struggle To Save Themselves

At least 10 passengers on a flight preparing to take off from Borneo island were injured, most of them with broken bones and head wounds, after panicked ensued when a man claimed there was a bomb on board, Indonesian police said Tuesday.

Passengers overheard the 26-year-old man, Frantinus Nirigi, telling a flight attendant there was a bomb on the Lion Air Boeing 737, which was to carry 189 passengers to Jakarta on Monday night.

An eventual inspection of the plane found no explosives.

After Nirigi made the bomb claim, another passenger broke open the emergency exits, enabling panicked passengers to flee the aircraft, Purnomo said.

He and Nirigi were both arrested.

Video posted online showed dozens of people standing on the plane’s right wing. Some slid down the right engine and landed on the tarmac.

Purnomo said eight passengers were hospitalised with broken bones and head wounds, while two others had minor injuries.

Police did not provide details on how the passengers were injured.

In a video taken by a passenger and posted online, a flight attendant identified only as Cindy told the airport authorities that passengers were pushing each other after the captain asked them to leave the plane immediately.

I asked passengers to immediately leave the plane calmly and orderly, but instead they pushed each other and scrambled out of the plane,she said.

Airline spokesman Danang Mandala said in a statement that the one-hour flight was delayed because a panicked passenger opened both emergency exits on the right side of the aircraft without instructions from the cabin crew.

He said a bomb joke was not a valid reason for someone to force open an emergency exit without the crew’s instructions.

No suspicious items were found after a thorough inspection of the plane by police and security personnel at Supadio airport in Pontianak city.

The flight departed for Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, after a three-hour delay, said Lukman Nurjaman, Lion Air’s district manager in Pontianak.

The incident is the latest bomb hoax on flights in Indonesia.

On Sunday, Lion Air removed a 25-year-old passenger from a flight departing from Jakarta bound for Malaysia after he joked about the presence of a bomb on board.

Indonesian flag carrier Garuda delayed a flight in March after a passenger claimed he was carrying a bomb.

National police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal said the two men arrested in Monday’s incident face up to eight years in prison.


Tourism Observer

MALAYSIA: 3,000 Chinese Tourists Cancell Trips To Malaysia To Avoid Tourism Tax.

Following a recent news report of thousands of tourists from China cancelling their trips to Malaysia because they were unwilling to pay the new tourism tax, the Tourism and Culture Ministry is now promising “special incentives” to cushion the negative impact on inbound tour operators.

Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association (Mita) president Uzaidi Udanis said today the minister Mohd Nazri Aziz gave the assurance at a meeting two days ago.

He said the meeting was also attended by the ministry’s senior officers and representatives of the Malaysia Tourism Council (MTC) and Malaysia Chinese Tourism Association (MCTA).

“Mita conveyed our concerns regarding contracted group tours which needed confirmation on the actual lodging cost.

“Datuk Nazri took note of the issue concerning previously contracted group tours, and assured that consideration and special incentives will be given to prevent any contract cancellations of group tours from overseas, as most of the contracts are valid until March 31, 2018,” Uzaidi said at a press conference.

He said the special incentives were to ensure tour groups did not cancel their reservations due to rising costs in accommodation.

Certain incentives had already been put in place by the ministry to help tour groups through MyCEB (Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau) and Tourism Malaysia, he added.

See Hua Daily News, the largest Chinese newspaper on Borneo island, reported last month that about 3,000 tourists from China were cancelling their trips to Malaysia due to the additional burden of the tourism tax.

According to the report, which quoted a tour agent who was a member of the Association of Inbound Tour Agencies, the tourists would have had to fork out an additional total RM100,000 to pay the tourism tax.

The group was said to have decided to visit Thailand instead.

The tourism tax, which is scheduled to come into force next month, is fixed and charged on a per-room, per-night basis.

The tax is RM2.50 for non-rated hotels. RM5 for two-star, RM10 for three-star, RM15 for four-star and RM20 for five-star.

Nazri had told the Dewan Rakyat in April that the tax would be able to bring in about RM654.62 million in revenue if there was a 60% occupancy rate at the more than 11 million “room nights” in the country.

He said the tax would be used to improve tourism facilities and promote Malaysia overseas.

However, due to widespread dissatisfaction over the imposition of the tax, Treasury secretary-general Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah said recently that locals checking into hotels rated three stars and below might be exempted from the tourism tax.

He said the government was studying the details and would make an announcement soon.



Tourism Observer
www.tourismobserver.com