Ryanair plane lands safely in Oslo after bomb threat, no explosives found

OSLO (Reuters) - A Ryanair aircraft flying from London to Norway landed safely at Oslo's main airport on Friday after receiving a bomb threat in the air, but no explosives were found and a suspect was arrested, Norwegian police said.

Danish F-16 military aircraft scrambled to escort the plane to Norway, The Danish Defence Command said on its Twitter account.

The police arrested a 51-year-old British man on suspicion of being behind the threat, the police said in a statement.

A bomb squad that examined the plane found no explosives, the police later told Norwegian daily VG.

There were 142 passengers on board the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and an undisclosed number of crew members, a senior police official told Norwegian media.

"Crew on a Ryanair flight from London Stansted to Oslo today discovered a note that claimed there was a potential security threat on board," a Ryanair spokeswoman said in an email to Reuters.

"The captain followed procedures and continued to Oslo airport where the plane landed safely. Customers remained on board while authorities carried out a security search," she added.

(Reporting by Victoria Klesty and Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Additional reporting by Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Jon Boyle and Frances Kerry)