On the morning of March 5th, islanders will recall that the airport was evacuated following receipt of a bomb scare. Thanks to the prompt and effective action of airport staff and the emergency services, the evacuation to Strive was efficient and once the threat had been assessed as not credible, the airport reopened at around 11.00. A job well done.
Except it now turns out that it wasn’t. A couple of weeks ago – following questions I was asking ministers concerning the airport having been placed in “special attention” by the regulator – sources started hinting that the bomb warning had actually been received the night before on March 4th, but because it was out of hours no one had seen the warning until the morning of the 5th. The implications were potentially devastating. Had the bomb scare not been a hoax, it is possible that a bomb could have gone off at the airport without a warning to the public, even though a warning had been sent. As it was, hundreds of members of the public were seriously inconvenienced, whereas if the threat had been assessed the night before it might have been deemed non credible before the airport opened.
A letter from Ports (see below) that has now been made public confirms that in fact the hoax was received the night before. The explanation proffered is that the hoaxers used a customer enquiry email that is not monitored out of hours. This raises more questions than it answers. For example, what protocols were in place to deal with bomb threats potentially received out of hours? (One very much hopes that protocols are now in place to ensure that bomb threats received out of hours will be picked up.)
It is impossible for me to assess what was reasonable in this situation but for this very reason I find it staggering that Ports have not put information regarding the timing of the bomb scare into the public domain, along with a full explanation of what happened. Instead, my information is that a media request to confirm that the bomb warning was received the day before the evacuation was rebuffed by Ports. This lack of openness and transparency invites the interpretation that Ports were embarrassed by the failure to spot the bomb warning. As always in these circumstances, by far the best approach is to put all the information in the public domain as soon as possible, answering all questions as openly as possible. As it is, the information has only now finally come out because I asked a Written Question to the Minister. Why drag it out?
Also notable is the staggering lack of curiosity displayed by ministers in relation to this matter, and to the regulator’s decision to put the airport into “special attention” in December 2024. With regard to the bomb scare, ministers were surely aware of questions being asked about the receipt of the warning at least a couple of weeks ago. Yet if the minister’s response to my question is to be believed, it is only yesterday that they learnt that the bomb threat was received the night before it was spotted. Both Ports failure to inform ministers and minister’s lack of curiosity when the matter was first being raised seem to me to be inexplicable.
With regard to the wider issues relating to the airport being placed into “special attention”, ministers have consistently shown a lack of interest in the issues raised, even though they were directly caused by a management reorganisation. They have emphasised that “special attention” is the lowest “level 1” intervention and therefore not a serious cause for concern.
However, a “level 1” intervention is described by the CAA as:
“A level 1 finding is issued when any significant non-compliance is detected with the certification basis of the aerodrome… which lowers safety or seriously endangers safety.”
Ministers were only told about the regulator’s move in February of this year, but they don’t appear remotely concerned that the airport was effectively skating on thin ice from a regulatory point of view without their knowledge. Given that the level 1 finding was issued in direct response to a management reorganisation, one might have thought that ministers had serious questions for the leadership of Ports of Jersey – a government owned company. Again, it is impossible for me to say whether there is an interaction between the management reorganisation that was the direct cause of the airport going into “special attention” and the failure to spot the bomb warning. But the easiest way to dispel such suggestions would have been to be open from the get-go.
All in all, this is a sorry tale of what happens when – instead of getting on the front foot and putting information into the public domain quickly, and answering all the resulting follow up questions openly – walls are put up.
The full comment from Ports is below:
At 23:16 04 March 2025 an email was sent to a customer enquiries email address detailing a threat against Jersey Airport. This email address is monitored during the operational hours of the airport. The threat was identified on 05 March 2025 during the standard airport opening procedures. The team activated emergency response protocols; threat assessors conducted a thorough risk evaluation, and the decision was taken to evacuate the terminal building. After a search of the terminal had been completed, the airport resumed operations at 11:02.
A multi-agency review of the incident took place, in accordance with emergency response procedures, with the following agencies:
• Office of the Director of Civil Aviation
• States of Jersey Fire Service
• States of Jersey Police
• States of Jersey Ambulance Service
• States of Jersey Police
• Channel Islands Emergency Planning
• States of Jersey Medical Services
• Jersey General Hospital
• Government of Jersey Emergency Planning / Justice and Home Affairs Department
Jonathan Renouf 