New bomb threats force more European flights into emergency landings | Aviation News

Hoax bomb threats have forced more than a dozen flights to make unplanned landings across Europe, days after a series of similar threats forced multiple flight diversions and the closure of an airport in Poland.

The warnings on Thursday disrupted at least 27 passenger flights across France, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, among others.

The Romanian intelligence agency said late on Thursday that two planes had received bomb threats, including a KLM flight to Tel Aviv with a layover in Bucharest.

The second was an earlier bomb threat made against a Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest.

Separately, French authorities announced that an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was rerouted to France after a suspected bomb threat.

The office of French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said fighter jets were sent to intercept the plane and escort it to the Evreux airbase, west of Paris, after the pilot did not cooperate with authorities as expected. It gave no reason for the pilot’s behaviour.

France’s air force said it scrambled military aircraft “as soon as the threat was reported”. Lecornu’s office said a bomb squad was in place at the base and that 151 passengers and six crew were moved to safety.

In another incident, Bulgaria’s air force said its fighter jets had escorted three airliners to the ground after bomb threats.

Two of the planes, which departed from Copenhagen and Madrid, landed in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, the country’s interior minister said, according to broadcaster bTV. A Ryanair flight from London to Sofia was diverted to Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second city.

“Upon landing, the necessary inspections were carried out in accordance with the applicable procedures and no issues were identified,” Bulgaria’s transport ministry told the Reuters news agency, adding that normal airport operations had resumed.

Meanwhile, Spanish police said three emailed threats arrived within 20 minutes, involving two Air Europa departures from Madrid to Paris and four inbound Iberia flights from Rome and Milan. Several aircraft were halted or returned to their stands in Madrid and passengers disembarked while the planes were inspected.

Four aircraft heading to Prague also received bomb threats. Czech police said all underwent pyrotechnic inspections, which yielded negative results.

“The investigation of the threats has been taken over by NCTEKK [the National Centre against Terrorism, Extremism and Cybercrime] and currently no further information can be provided,” the police said on the social media platform X.

In Belgium, LOT Polish Airlines said that a flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed safely at its destination after a security warning.

“Following receipt of information regarding a potential security threat to flight LO235 from Warsaw to Brussels, the flight crew was notified of the situation and conducted an onboard inspection in accordance with established procedures. No suspicious items were found,” a LOT spokesperson said.

The aircraft landed at Zaventem airport in Brussels, where security services carried out an additional inspection of the plane. No dangerous or suspicious items were found, and airport spokespeople said no additional security measures were necessary.

Separately, a Wizz Air flight from Milan to Warsaw was rerouted to Vienna after a hoax bomb threat was reported, the airline said.

“The diversion was carried out in accordance with established safety protocols and procedures,” Wizz Air said in a statement.

Another hoax bomb alert was reported on a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome, an airport spokesperson told the AFP news agency. That flight was escorted to the Italian capital by a fighter jet and checked by bomb disposal experts.

Elsewhere, a spokesperson for the Finnish carrier said a threat was made against a Helsinki-Vienna flight operated by Jettime on Thursday. The plane landed in the Austrian capital without incident.

While no country has attributed blame for the threats, they come as many European officials are accusing Russia of planning “hybrid attacks” – which are often cheap, easily deniable and not expected to trigger an armed response.

UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told British media that flights across Europe were hit by “malicious hoax threats”.

The European Union said it was not yet clear whether the hoax bomb alerts were connected, and that it was following events closely with national authorities.

“Any threats against civilians are unacceptable,” EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas wrote on X, adding that it was “too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked”.

The disruption comes after several European flights were targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday, prompting emergency searches and briefly shutting down an airport outside the Polish capital, Warsaw.

That incident also led the Italian air force to escort a Ryanair plane into Rome.

Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University, told Al Jazeera that the number of planes forced to divert or land was “unusual”, but that “bomb threats themselves are not”.

Still, he noted that European authorities are taking the threat seriously, demanding that “aircraft actually land and be completely inspected”.

“What has happened this week seems to be coordinated, to some extent,” Baum said. “Authorities across multiple countries in Europe are evaluating the threat as being specific.”

Reporting from Heathrow airport in London, Al Jazeera correspondent Frances Read said there was “no indication of who would be behind this, but there is a wider context in a time of geopolitical tension”.

“We’ve seen cyberattacks on other things, like a hack on supermarket refrigerators which turned up the temperature to spoil food in supermarkets across Europe, and we’ve seen drone incursions as well,” the correspondent said.

The German government has blamed Russia for a failed drone attack on Leipzig airport in August.

While there is no evidence linking the recent bomb threats to these previous attacks, “that is realistically what European governments will be looking at”, Read added.