London - An Australian flight attendant who sparked a mid-air emergency by leaving a bomb hoax note on board an Emirates aircraft was Thursday jailed for 18 months by a British court. Matthew Carney, 23, from Melbourne, had admitted hiding a note in the toilet of an Emirates flight from Dubai to London on March 22 which was found by a passenger.
"Explosive material can be found in the FWD (forward cargo department). We have the Taliban to thank for this," the note said.
The captain was informed of the discovery and the plane was surrounded by armed officers as it touched down at London's Gatwick airport.
At Lewes Crown Court, in the southern county of Kent, Carney pleaded guilty to "communicating information known or believed to be false with the intention of inducing a false belief that an object liable to explode or ignite was present in the cargo of a plane."
But he denied a second charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft.
