According to flight tracker Flightradar24, the Air Indian Express plane took off from the Madurai airport at about 1.54pm local time and was due to land in Singapore at about 8.50pm. It only landed at 10.04pm after a delay of over an hour.

At least 10 Indian flights received hoax bomb threats over the past 48 hours, leading to long delays and diversions. On Tuesday, Singapore's Air Force sent two fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane away from populated areas following a bomb threat.

Twin bomb threats hit Indian airliners on opposite sides of the globe on Tuesday, forcing an emergency landing in the Arctic and fighter jets to scramble in Asia – the latest in a series of similar hoax scares for the country’s airlines.