Bomb threats have affected at least 25 flights in Europe today, in the largest disruption this week after similar threats were made on Monday and Tuesday.
Thursday’s disruption particularly affected low-cost carriers flying over Italy, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as well as France, Brussels and Austria.
No explosives have been found on any of the affected flights, and the source of the threats is yet to be determined.
Which flights are affected?
The flights which have been diverted include:
- Aer Lingus flight EI402 from Dublin to Rome, diverted to Évreux
- Ryanair flight FR1730 from London Stansted to Sofia, diverted to Plovdiv
- Wizz Air flight W46387 from Milan to Warsaw, diverted to Vienna
The Milan to Warsaw flight has since continued on to Warsaw.
The flights affected by threats, but which landed in their intended location include:
- Finnair flight AY1761 from Helsinki to Rome
- Aegean Airlines flight A3552 from Thessaloniki to Milan
- Ryanair flight FR8953 from Porto to Milan
- Wizz Air flight WMT3064 from Milan to Bucharest
- Finnair flight AY1471 from Helsinki to Vienna
- Aegean Airlines flight Flight A3860 from Athens to Vienna
- Ryanair flight FR6410 from Madrid to Sofia
- Ryanair flight FR3606 from Copenhagen to Sofia
- LOT flight LO235 from Warsaw to Brussels
Flight numbers have also not yet been identified for the other affected flights, including four flights heading towards Prague, six at Madrid airport, two which landed in Copenhagen and one LOT flight from Warsaw to Paris.
Leaders condemn bomb threat ‘hoax’
Britain’s transport secretary said on Thursday that flights across Europe were hit by “malicious hoax threats.”
Heidi Alexander said there are “established processes for dealing with hoax and malicious threats, and that’s what these threats have been”.
The EU said it was “too early to draw conclusions” on any connections between this week’s various bomb threats, and that it was following events closely with national authorities.
“Any threats against civilians are unacceptable,” EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas posted on X.
While no country has attributed blame for the threats, they come at a time when many European officials have accused Russia of masterminding sabotage and “hybrid attacks” — often cheap, easily deniable and not expected to trigger an armed response.
Today’s events marked the third day this week in which bomb threats disrupted air traffic over Europe, with about 10 flights targeted on Tuesday.
Those threats — which turned out to be hoaxes — forced the closure of a Warsaw airport and the deployment of Italian air force jets to protect flights.
On Monday, a Wizz Air flight from London’s Luton airport to Sofia was diverted following a bomb threat and forced to make an emergency stop in Budapest.
What happened?
The first reported affected flight was an Aer Lingus plane flying from Dublin to Rome, diverted to an air base at Évreux, France, following a bomb threat.
All 151 passengers and six crew members are safe and military bomb defusal teams are examining the plane, officials said.
“Aer Lingus will work to re-accommodate customers to their final destination as soon as possible,” the airline said in a statement.
Soon after news broke of the Aer Lingus flight, three Ryanair flights bound for Sofia, Bulgaria, had to make emergency landings because of bomb threats on board.
Two of the flights, one from Copenhagen and the other from Madrid, landed safely at Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport, airport officials said.
The third flight, from London’s Stansted Airport to Sofia, had been diverted and landed safely at the airport in Plovdiv — Bulgaria’s second-largest city — Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev said.
Air force fighter jets escorted all three planes, the defence ministry said, saying such missions “detect, identify and escort the aircraft”.
Bulgaria’s transport ministry later said inspections carried out on the three planes identified no issues.
Spanish authorities received three emailed bomb threats in under 20 minutes from around 9am local time, involving two Air Europa departures from Madrid to Paris and four inbound Iberia flights from Rome and Milan, Spain’s Guardia Civil said. They did not identify those flights.
Several aircraft were halted or returned to their stands and passengers were disembarked while planes were inspected.
In Denmark, a military bomb disposal unit searched two planes at Copenhagen airport but did not find any devices, police said without identifying those flights.
“Our assessment is that there is no danger, and there has never been any danger, to passengers or anyone else at the airport,” Copenhagen police said.
Italian local media also reported at least four flights over Italy had been affected, including two heading to Milan, one which had taken off in Milan, and one heading to Rome.
The alerts did not disrupt operations at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the company managing the airport said.
Two Finnair flights from Helsinki were affected, including one to Rome and one to Vienna. (Reuters: Denis Balibouse)
The Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome was successfully escorted into the city by Italian Air Force units, and a Finnair spokesperson said it “nevertheless landed as normal”.
An emailed bomb threat had been received, and security clearance procedures by police bomb disposal experts were completed with no explosives found, an official said.
A flight from Milan to Warsaw was diverted to Vienna following an email to Polish authorities containing an abstract threat, said Lower Austria police spokesperson Stefan Loidl. Nothing was found, and the plane continued to Warsaw.
He said there was also an abstract threat to Vienna Airport concerning four other flights, which he declined to identify, but operations were not disrupted.
An Aegean Airlines flight from Thessaloniki and a Ryanair flight from Porto both landed safely at their destination in Milan, local media said. Police and bomb disposal experts arrived to inspect baggage and the crew.
Aegean Airlines said in a statement that another flight, from Athens to Vienna, was also a bomb target.
It said the flights departed from both Milan and Vienna after it was confirmed that the threats were “baseless”.
Finnair said its flight from Helsinki to Vienna, operated by Jettime, also received a threat but landed normally in Vienna.
The company said the plane to Rome was inspected and will depart back to Helsinki, while the flight to Vienna will “return to traffic normally after inspection”.
Romania’s intelligence agency said another Wizz flight from Milan to Bucharest had received a bomb threat but landed safely in Bucharest.
Checks turned up no threat, and air traffic was continuing on schedule.
Two Easyjet flights from Britain, one flight from Ireland and one from Greece landed as scheduled in Prague after receiving bomb threats, Czech police said.
Police later said searches of the planes that landed in Prague found nothing suspicious. They did not give details on where the flights originated from.
Prague Airport spokeswoman Denisa Hejtmankova said the airport had received all the threats in emails from anonymous addresses.
No explosives were found on those planes after landing, local media cited a police spokesperson as saying.
Poland’s LOT airline said its flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed safely in Brussels after a security warning. (Reuters: Kacper Pempel)
Poland’s LOT airline also said its flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed safely in Brussels after a security warning, but the threat was not confirmed.
Crew and security services carried out inspections of the plane and no dangerous or suspicious items were found.
In Warsaw, a LOT flight to Paris was stopped as it was taxiing towards take-off and passengers were transferred to another aircraft as a precaution. No threat was ultimately identified.
One runway at Chopin Airport was temporarily closed while authorities carried out standard security procedures.
ABC/Wires
Source: www.abc.net.au
