European flights forced to make emergency landings due to bomb threats

Multiple flights in Europe were targeted by bomb threats on Thursday, forcing emergency landings, searches and military escorts to airports in France, Italy and Bulgaria. A British official called them “malicious hoaxes” that followed another rash of hoax threats earlier this week.

More than a dozen flights from cities including Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan and Warsaw were confirmed to have been targeted with bomb threats, most diverted to other airports for emergency landings while others landed safely at their destinations. So far inspections have not turned up hazardous or suspicious materials.

Britain’s Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told British broadcasters that flights across Europe have been hit by “malicious hoax threats.”

The European Union’s Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said that “any threats against civilians are unacceptable,” and that the EU’s executive branch was in contact with affected member countries.

“It is too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked,” Tzitzikostas told reporters in Dublin. “National investigations remain ongoing.”

He said that an EU level information-sharing mechanism on aviation security had been activated, and that “we don’t have information yet whether this is a cyberattack.”

Such threats are not new, but the latest incidents come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and other disruptions, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions in Europe and mysterious triggers to alert apps. Authorities have warned that hybrid threats abound.

High security at French air base

A flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a military air base in western France because of a bomb threat, the French prime minister’s office said. The flight landed safely at the base in Evreux in Normandy, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said.

All 151 passengers and six crew members were safe and military bomb disposal teams were examining the plane, the office said. The passengers aboard the Aer Lingus Dublin-Rome flight were questioned and checked in groups of 10 inside the airport, the prime minister’s office said.

Hours later, the plane was sitting on the tarmac with a Red Cross vehicle nearby and explosives experts with dogs seen examining the aircraft.

Italian authorities alerted France’s government to the bomb threat on the Aer Lingus flight, and a French warplane escorted it to the Evreux base, the prime minister’s office said. An investigation was opened by French aviation security authorities.

Hoaxes prompted similar searches earlier this week

Italian air force fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome after an email threat was received, according to an airport official with knowledge of the situation. It landed safely at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport at around 9:30 a.m., and no explosive materials were found during an inspection by police bomb disposal experts, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Finnair said that two of its flights, including the one that landed in Rome, “faced unfounded hoax bomb scares.” Nothing was found aboard Finnair AY1761, and the plane was scheduled to depart for Helsinki.

The other flight, operated by Jettime, from Helsinki to Vienna landed safely at its destination, and was expected to return to service after an inspection was completed, Finnair said.

Airlines describe abstract threats

Greece’s Aegean Airlines confirmed Thursday that two flights — one from Thessaloniki to Milan and another from Athens to Vienna — received bomb threats that proved to be hoaxes. The airline said all security protocols were implemented and that the flights departed from both Milan and Vienna after it was confirmed that the threats were “baseless.”

Czech police said searches of four other planes that landed in Prague after being targeted by bomb threats found nothing suspicious. They did not give details on where the flights originated and said they took precautions despite not finding the threats credible.

A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed at its destination, where inspections found no hazardous or suspicious items, the airline said.

A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely in Bucharest following a bomb threat, airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu said. Checks turned up no threat, and air traffic was continuing on schedule.

A flight to Warsaw landed in Vienna following a mail to Polish authorities containing a vague threat, said Stefan Loidl, a police spokesperson in Lower Austria province. Nothing was found and the plane continued to Warsaw.

He said there was also a vague threat to Vienna Airport concerning four other flights, which he declined to identify, but operations were not disrupted.

Polish authorities checked a LOT flight that was about to depart from Warsaw to Paris on Thursday morning after a threat was reported at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, said airport spokesman Piotr Rudzki. No threat was ultimately identified. One runway at Chopin Airport was temporarily closed while authorities carried out standard security procedures.

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, Denmark, and the other from Madrid, landed safely at Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport, airport officials told reporters. The third Sofia-bound flight, from London’s Stansted Airport to Sofia, had been diverted and landed safely in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev said.

The three planes that made an emergency landing in Sofia and Plovdiv were escorted through Bulgarian airspace by fighter jets, the Ministry of Defense said.

Hoaxes prompted similar searches earlier this week

Several flights across Europe received hoax bomb threats earlier this week that prompted searches, diversions and, in one case, an escort by the Italian air force until landing, officials said.

The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.

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Charlton reported from Paris and Biller from Rome. Associated Press writers throughout Europe contributed to this report.