A wave of more than two dozen hoax bomb threats against flights swept through Europe on Thursday, prompting emergency landings and military escorts for several aircraft. Both Heathrow and Birmingham airports received threats that were assessed as not credible, while flights were diverted across the continent in response to the alerts.
Flights Diverted and Met by Police
EasyJet said one of its flights from Newcastle and another from Glasgow were met by police on arrival in Prague as a "precautionary measure due to a security-related matter." A Ryanair flight from London Stansted heading for Sofia, Bulgaria, was diverted and landed safely in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. One flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to an airfield in northern France.
Most of the impacted flights were diverted to other airports for emergency landings, while others landed safely at their destinations. So far, no hazardous or suspicious materials have been found in any of the planes, in what a British official called "malicious" hoaxes.
Airport and Airline Responses
A Heathrow spokesperson said: "Safety and security are our top priority. There are robust UK aviation security standards in place to assess and safely manage these types of situations. Upon receiving the threat, a multi-agency response is initiated to assess the information and determine the response. The threat received today was deemed not credible and there was no risk to passengers, colleagues or the aircraft at Heathrow."
The alert, thought to be the biggest to hit Europe, followed another slew of similar threats during the previous week, as police in multiple countries launched a hunt for the perpetrators. The cost of re-routing planes, emergency landings, scrambling military planes as escorts, and the pan-Europe investigation may run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Investigation and Suspicions
The incidents have sparked fears that the warnings could have been launched by malicious actors or gangs linked to state-sponsored plots on behalf of Iran or Russia. There were also reports from European officials that an anti-feminist group had claimed to have emailed a bomb threat. Authorities in Rome said they received a bomb threat by email from a group claiming to be called "The Fighters of the Male State."
Britain's Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said flights across Europe have been hit by "malicious hoax threats." European Union Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in Dublin that it was "too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked," adding: "National investigations remain ongoing."
Italian air force fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight that departed Helsinki bound for Rome after an email threat was received, the air force said in a statement. Finnair said that two of its flights, including the one that received the military escort and landed safely in Rome, "faced unfounded hoax bomb scares."
Several flights across Europe received hoax bomb threats earlier this week, officials said, including flights operated by 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.
