A series of hoax bomb threats has disrupted air travel across Europe, forcing more than a dozen flights to make emergency landings or diversions. While security teams in cities like Prague and Rome found no explosivs, the incidents have caused significant logistical chaos for multiple airlines.
From Italian fighter jets to French military bases
Finnair Flight 1761, traveling from Helsinki to Rome, required an escort by Italian Air Force fighter jets after receiving an emailed bomb threat. As the report indicates,the aircraft landed safely at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport around 9:30 a.m. after police bomb disposal experts completed their security clearance and found nothing unusual.
Other diversions involved high-security military locations, such as a Dublin-to-Rome flight that was forced to land at a military air base in Evreux, Normandy. According to the source, the French prime minister's office monitored the situation in real time as military bomb disposal teams inspected the plane, which carried 151 passengers and six crew members, all of whom remained safe .
Ryanair's three diversions to Sofia and Plovdiv
Ryanair was forced to execute three separate emergency landings in Bulgaria following bomb threats on board. Two of these flihts, originating from Copenhagen and Madrid, landed safely at Sofia's Vasil Levski Airport. The third flight, which departed from London's Stansted Airport, was diverted to Plovdiv Airport, Bulgaria's second-largest city, according to Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev.
Other carriers were also impacted by the wave of disruptions. A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely following a threat, while LOT Polish Airlines reported that a flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed without finding any suspicious items.. At Warsaw's Chopin Airport, a LOT flight bound for Paris was delayed while authorities closed one runway to conduct standard security procedures.
The link between flight hoaxes and drone incursions
The recent wave of aviation disruptions follows a broader pattern of increasing geopolitical tensions and hybrid threats across the continent. The report notes that these hoax threats are occurring alongside other forms of disruption, such as drone incursions in European airspace and attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems.
Authorities have warned that these incidents may be part of a larger trend of hybrid warfare designed to create instability. This context suggests that the sudden spike in aviation threats is not an isolated series of pranks but part of a wider landscape of security challenges facing European infrastructure.
The mystery of the emailed threats sent to Rome and Vienna
Despite the scale of the diversions, several critical details regarding the perpetrators remain unknown. It is currently unclear if the emailed bomb threat received by Finnair is linked to the "abstract threat" reported by Lower Austria police in Vienna, which affected four other flights at Vienna Airport. The source does not specify if these threats originated from a single coordinated group or multiple independent actors .
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