Series of threats to Prime Minister

A bomb threat forced Prime Minister Helen Clark off a chartered aircraft that was about to take off from Tauranga airport yesterday.

A mid-afternoon call by a man to airport manager Gavin Meadows said a bomb had been placed on the Great Barrier Airlines Piper Navaho which was to take Helen Clark to Auckland.

She and her entourage, along with the pilot and co-pilot - who was Treasurer Michael Cullen's daughter, Imogen - left the plane at the end of the runway about 500m from the airport terminal.

They were waiting for clearance to take off when the threat came.

The Prime Minister, who continued her journey in a Government car, said her timetable was three hours out because of the delays.

She had had to charter a plane to get to Tauranga from Auckland, and then the bomb threat disrupted her return.

"Just as we were revving to take off this threat came to the control tower," she said. "I think it was the same person who made threats earlier in the day."

The Tauranga Baycourt Theatre, where the Prime Minister had addressed more than 600 Grey Power members, had also received a threat.

The plane was checked by an aviation security explosives dog flown from Auckland on the police Eagle helicopter, but nothing was found.

The aircraft was then towed to a far corner of the airfield so the airport, which had been closed to other flights for more than two hours, could reopen.

Searches of the plane by police and fire personnel continued late into the evening.