Plane bomb hoax: Australian flight attendant jailed

An Australian flight attendant has been jailed for 18 months in England for leaving a bomb hoax note on a London-bound plane he was working on.

Matthew Carney, 23, of Melbourne, was arrested in March after the Emirates Boeing 777 flight he was on landed at Gatwick airport amid a major security scare about whether there was a bomb on board.

While no explosive devices were found, two notes referring to a bomb on the jumbo were discovered - one in a passenger toilet and another in Carney's luggage.

Carney pleaded guilty to making a hoax threat at Lewes Crown Court in southern England on Thursday. He denied a second charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft.

Handing down Carney's sentence, judge Richard Brown said the Australian had breached the trust of the plane's 164 passengers, its owner and his co-workers.

Carney's lawyer Andel Singh said he had been under great stress and was extremely tired while he was working on board the flight from Dubai.

"He apologises wholeheartedly and sincerely to all those individuals who were even the slightest bit inconvenienced," Singh said.

Fears about a bomb being on board the plane arose when Carney found wires hanging in an economy toilet cubicle during the flight to Gatwick.

He alerted senior staff who found the wires were not connected to any electrical devices and removed them before instructing cabin crew to monitor the cubicle for any suspicious activity.