The airport's tweet says 256 people were on board. The RCMP in Nova Scotia said on its Twitter feed that it would not comment on the details of the bomb threat and was looking to identify the person or persons responsible.

It added that police will be "searching the Turkish Airlines plane using police dogs trained in explosives."

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The RCMP said the bomb threat was received at 10:50 pm local time. Flight tracking sites show the flight had already taken off from John F Kennedy International Airport in New York by then.

Last Tuesday night, Air France Flight 55 from Dulles International Airport outside Washington was diverted to Halifax after an anonymous bomb threat was phoned in after the plane had taken off.

An FBI statement late Tuesday said authorities had investigated and found no credible threat, and the RCMP said investigators found no evidence of an explosive device.

That threat came after the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and heightened security concerns worldwide.