European Aviation: Coordinated Bomb Hoaxes Force Diversions and Fighter Escorts
Multiple airlines diverted flights to different airports Tuesday after receiving false bomb threats, with Italian and Hungarian military jets assisting in two cases.
By Isaac Medina ·
A series of false bomb alerts disrupted air traffic across Europe on Tuesday, forcing airlines to divert flights and prompting military intervention in two countries.
Two Ryanair aircraft arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino airport after receiving emails claiming explosives were on board. One flight originated in Lisbon and the other in Dublin. Police bomb disposal teams searched the planes and found no threats. The Italian Air Force escorted the Dublin-bound plane to the ground.
In Poland, a LOT flight from London Heathrow to Warsaw Chopin Airport was diverted to the nearby Modlin airport. The Modlin terminal closed temporarily while crews inspected the plane. Polish officials confirmed no real threat existed, and passengers were later moved to Chopin by coach. A separate Scandinavian Airlines flight from Copenhagen also received a warning about a potentially dangerous item at Chopin, leading to the temporary closure of one runway.
Spanish officials inspected a Ryanair plane from Manchester that landed in Murcia after a bomb threat. Francisco Lucas, the Spanish government delegate for the region, confirmed the aircraft held 121 people and that security checks found no explosives. In Bulgaria, two planes from Italy and Ireland landed safely in Sofia after receiving threats mid-flight. Transportation Minister Georgi Peev stated that a pilot reported one threat through airline channels, leading to a standard protocol inspection by counter-terrorism units.
These incidents followed a similar event on Monday when a Wizz Air flight from Luton, England, diverted to Budapest. Hungarian Defense Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi confirmed that a Gripen fighter jet escorted the aircraft to Liszt Ferenc International Airport. Authorities found no explosives after inspecting the plane. Officials are currently trying to identify the sender of the threats.
No passengers or crew were injured in any of the Tuesday incidents. The affected carriers included LOT, SAS, Wizz Air, and Ryanair. This latest wave of disruptions follows a recent pattern of false alarms in European aviation, including a Tel Aviv to Vienna flight that made an emergency landing in Bulgaria last month.
