By Paola Totaro
British police have charged an Australian man over an alleged bomb hoax that led to the evacuation of an Emirates flight at London's Gatwick airport on the weekend.
The man, Matthew Carney, 23, from Melbourne, was arrested on Sunday after a note was discovered on board an Emirates flight from Dubai to London. The note, found 10 minutes before the flight landed at Gatwick, allegedly suggested an explosive device was on the aircraft.
The plane was carrying 184 passengers and explosive experts boarded to search luggage while passengers were evacuated and interviewed by police.
Carney has been charged with allegedly communicating information with the intention of inducing a false belief that an object liable to explode or ignite was in the plane's cargo, police said.
Carney entered no plea in court and was remanded in custody, apparently by videolink from prison, to appear again on Thursday.
This is the second safety incident to affect the Emirates airline in the past few days. The tail of an Airbus A40-500 touched the runway as it was taking off from Melbourne airport about 10.30pm on Friday.
More than 200 passengers circled Port Phillip for about half an hour while fuel was dumped and investigations have now begun into the incident.