Former United Bermuda Party MP Bob Richards is glad to be alive today after a harrowing experience on a British Airways flight when a package suspected to be a bomb was discovered on board.

The plane, which was en route to London, England from Singapore, a 14 hour non-stop journey, had to be diverted to New Delhi, India, where emergency services were waiting.

But in the end the suspicious package turned out to be a box of Quantas freshen up packets.

Mr. Richards and his wife Pauline had been in Malaysia for a vacation and took the British Airways flight from Singapore last Monday.

Several hours into the flight the senior flight attendant was urgently summoned to the flight deck, through the PA system and the cabin crew "sprung into a frenzy of activity" soon after.

The passengers were told that there had been a "threat to the airline" and that the plane would be diverted to New Delhi.

Mr. and Mrs. Richards and the other passengers in business class were ordered to move to the back of the aircraft, leaving hand-held items behind.

"I just about got on my shoes before I had to move," he said shortly after the incident.

It was only while waiting on the tarmac at New Delhi airport, said Mr. Richards, that he realised that the aircraft had been considered directly threatened.

The plane had landed on a remote part of the runway and there were a number of emergency vehicles nearby.

"They moved us to a respectful distance from the plane but I thought if it had exploded then we would have been toast," he continued.

The passengers were transported to an airport waiting lounge where the captain and the cabin crew explained fully what had happened.

A package had been found in club class, and suspicions were raised because it was unidentified and unlabelled.

Crew took the precaution of surrounding it with wet blankets in case it exploded before the plane landed, and contacted officials in London and India for advice.

Mr. Richards said that passengers "laughed in relief" when it was discovered that the package was a box of freshen up packets, "until we realised that this package had been on our plane since Sidney, Australia, the flight's port of origin" and had been undetected by security in Sidney and Singapore.

Further more the package had been on the plane for over six hours before it was discovered.

They spent the night in a hotel in Delhi before taking another flight Tuesday morning to London.

"The (hotel) rooms transported us back to the 1950s and were well worn.

"But to be able to be horizontal and not in a BA designed coffin, is a real treat," he said.