Turkish Airlines plane returns to Istanbul in third bomb scare in weeks

ANKARA, Turkey - A Turkish Airlines flight en route to Basel in Switzerland on Tuesday returned for an emergency landing at Istanbul airport due to a bomb scare, the third in less than a month, the Dogan News Agency reported.

It said flight TK1923 with 151 people aboard turned back over Bulgarian airspace and landed safely at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

On April 1, a Turkish Airlines flight to Portugal returned to Istanbul due to a bomb hoax. On March 30, a flight to Sao Paolo was forced to make an emergency landing in Casablanca following another false scare.

Turkey has been facing a series of security issues recently, most notably a deadly attack on March 31 by rebel gunmen that killed a prosecutor followed by an assault on a police station in which the female attacker was shot dead.