A hoax bomb blast message forced authorities to evacuate and conduct thorough searches of the Varanasi-bound IndiGo flight at the Delhi airport on Tuesday, officials said.
The flight, 6E2211, with 176 passengers onboard, was scheduled to take off from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport around 5 am but was stopped on the runway minutes before departure after the pilot found a tissue paper with the message "bomb blast @30 minutes" written on it in the aircraft's washroom.
"At 05:40 am, a phone call was received from the IGI airport regarding a bomb threat. A message 'BOMB BLAST @30 MINUTES' was written on a piece of paper inside the lavatory of the flight and was found by the pilot," a Delhi Fire Services official said.
The aircraft was immediately taken to the isolation bay for further necessary action, the official said, adding that a quick response team was deployed, which found no suspicious items.
All passengers were deboarded through the emergency door and are safe, the official said.
The IndiGo also released an official statement and said that the aircraft was taken to a remote bay as per guidelines by airport security agencies.
"The flight is currently undergoing inspection. Post completion of all security checks, the aircraft will be positioned back in the terminal area," the airline said.
Earlier this month, a tissue paper with the word 'bomb' written on it was found on an Air India flight lavatory at Delhi airport, but it had turned out to be a hoax.
Police had said that they received information regarding a tissue paper found in the lavatory of an Air India flight scheduled to depart for Vadodara on May 15, with the word 'bomb' written on it.
"Following standard security protocols, a thorough inspection was conducted, and no suspicious items were found," an official had said.
Several hospitals and schools in Delhi have recently been targeted with bomb threat emails, that claimed the presence of explosives on their premises. However, investigators found the threats to be false alarms.