Ten European Flights Hit By Bomb Threats
Ryanair faced the most disruptions as authorities scrambled jets and closed runways to inspect aircraft that all landed safely.
By Madison Lewis ·
Approximately ten European flights received bomb threats on Tuesday, triggering a coordinated security response across the continent.
Authorities in Poland, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom confirmed the alerts, which resulted in the brief closure of Warsaw's Chopin airport and the deployment of fighter jets to escort aircraft in Italy.
No explosives were found on any of the planes after they landed safely in their respective destinations within hours of one another.
Ryanair, an Irish budget carrier, reported the highest number of affected services, with four of its flights targeted.
London's Metropolitan Police stated that threats were issued against four aircraft scheduled to depart from or arrive at Heathrow Airport, with an additional warning issued for a flight at Manchester Airport.
Police confirmed that no security issues were identified following the checks.
Two separate warnings targeted flights bound for Warsaw: an SAS Scandinavian Airlines service from Copenhagen and a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Heathrow.
Polish airport authorities noted that the SAS flight landed at Chopin airport, prompting the closure of one runway for a security inspection that yielded no results.
The LOT flight was diverted to Warsaw Modlin, the city's secondary airport, which was also closed for the alert.
Adam Szablowski, a spokesman for Modlin airport, told AFP that the Boeing 737 MAX landed safely and that nothing was found during the search.
In southeastern Spain, the airport operator Aena activated an emergency protocol for a Ryanair flight that landed at 10:30am local time in Murcia from Manchester.
Italian authorities scrambled air force jets to escort flight FR9611 from Dublin as it touched down at Rome-Fiumicino at 10:45am, following an earlier anti-bomb procedure for a Ryanair arrival at 9:40am that found no issues with passengers, luggage, or the aircraft itself, according to a statement from Rome Airport officials, who also noted that the alert was lifted after negative checks on a subsequent Ryanair service from Lisbon to Rome and another from Dublin to Sofia, while a Wizz Air flight from Bergamo to Sofia was inspected upon landing after an alert was issued by the Bulgarian interior ministry, and the wave of incidents followed a similar scare on Monday when a Wizz Air flight from London's Luton airport to Sofia was diverted by a bomb threat and forced to make an emergency stop in Budapest, with Hungarian Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi writing on Facebook that NATO's air defence alert service had issued an alert for that flight and that Hungarian Defence Forces Gripen fighter jets took to the air within minutes to ensure the safe landing of the passenger aircraft in Budapest, and Scandinavian Airlines confirmed that a threat had been made against flight SK751 between Copenhagen and Warsaw, but the plane landed without incident, and Matthew Borie, co-founder and chief intelligence officer of Osprey Flight Solutions, outlined several possible explanations for the unexplained incidents, including a single threat sparking copycat cases, an individual or group making multiple threats, or hybrid warfare operations by state actors or their supporters, and he said such threats were not a new phenomenon and come amid heightened geopolitical tensions and signs of disruption, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions in Europe and mysterious triggers of alert apps, and Borie said the focus on Europe means there could be a Russian angle, while cautioning that Iranian hybrid warfare is just as active in certain pockets of Europe as well, and his advice to travellers was simple: Don't be alarmed, pointing to coordinated response mechanisms by national authorities that at times include NATO fighter jets escorting threatened planes.
