Passengers line up to speak to a Porter airlines gate agent at the departures level of the Ottawa/Macdonald–Cartier International Airport on Thursday.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
A series of bomb threats that briefly grounded flights at six major Canadian airports Thursday began with an early morning phone call to an air traffic control tower in Vancouver, soon repeated at other towers across the country.
Warnings about delays were issued at airports in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal after the anonymous threats, which also prompted evacuations of employees from some of the control towers. Air travel resumed at all of the targeted airports by midday and police say there was no evidence of any explosive materials.
Police forces in four of the six cities told The Globe and Mail that the threats were made directly to air-traffic control towers. The phone numbers for some towers are publicly available on the internet.
Investigators say they have not identified any suspects.
An information board at the Ottawa/Macdonald–Cartier International Airport shows numerous delayed flights on Thursday.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
The Vancouver tower received the first phone call at about 2 a.m. local time, the RCMP detachment responsible for the airport said in an e-mail. Alberta RCMP say the Edmonton control tower received a threat at 4 a.m. local time. Another threat was received at the Winnipeg control tower at 6 a.m. local time, and Montreal’s tower received a call around the same time ‐ 7 a.m. local.
Calgary police said they responded to a threat at 4:15 a.m., but could not confirm how the threat was delivered. Ottawa police did not respond to a request for comment on the threat to that city’s airport in time for publication.
All of the towers are operated by Nav Canada, the non-profit that staffs Canada’s air-traffic control facilities and serves every province and territory. The agency issued a warning to the public early Thursday morning, as did the Federal Aviation Administration, the United States regulator.
“Early this morning, NAV CANADA was made aware of bomb threats affecting several of our facilities,” Nav Canada spokesperson Vanessa Adams said in an e-mail. “Employees at impacted locations were safely evacuated.”
Canada’s largest airport was unaffected by the threats. “Operations at Toronto Pearson continue to function without interruption,” Erica Vella of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said Thursday.
Spokespeople for Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver’s international airports said the incident had minimal impact on operations.
According to the airports’ websites, most flights were delayed at mid-morning in Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa on Thursday, with a handful of cancelled departures in Ottawa.
The delays cascaded through the domestic network, causing delayed arrivals in Toronto, Vancouver and other airports.
According to FlightRadar24, the average delay at Ottawa’s airport on Thursday morning was 70 minutes, compared with 26 minutes in Montreal and 38 minutes in Quebec City.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the impact on the airline was “minimal.”
Nav Canada declined to provide details of the threats to the towers. In statement, the agency said after a police assessment, “it was deemed safe for operations to resume. We will continue to work closely with authorities at multiple levels.”
With reports from Colin Freeze and Eric Atkins