Seven flights across Europe searched after bomb threats in a single day, as airports and air forces respond and no explosives are found
Seven passenger flights across Europe were searched on Tuesday after a series of suspected bomb threats, with a Heathrow flight diverted, an airport briefly closed and Italian fighter jets scrambled, but no explosives were found on any aircraft.
Seven passenger flights across Europe were searched on Tuesday after a series of suspected bomb threats, triggering diversions, a brief airport closure and a fighter-jet escort, although no explosives were found on any of the aircraft, according to the BBC, AFP and national authorities. The threats, reported over a few hours on Tuesday morning, affected flights heading to Poland, Spain, Italy and Bulgaria, two of them departing from the United Kingdom.
The first of the day’s incidents involved a LOT Polish Airlines flight from London Heathrow to Warsaw. The Boeing 737 MAX, operating flight LO286 with 181 people on board, was almost two hours into its journey and shortly before landing at Warsaw’s main Chopin Airport when the threat was reported, just before 10am local time. The aircraft diverted instead to Warsaw Modlin Airport, north-west of the capital, where it was inspected and the airport was briefly closed while safety protocols were carried out.
A second Warsaw-bound flight was affected at around the same time. A Scandinavian Airlines flight from Copenhagen, carrying about 60 passengers, landed at Chopin Airport as scheduled and was then searched after a report of a potentially dangerous object on board. Chopin Airport said no device was found and the airport remained operational, while passengers on the diverted LOT flight were later transferred by bus to Chopin.
In Spain, a Ryanair flight from Manchester to Murcia, in the south-east of the country, was investigated after landing on Tuesday morning. Spanish authorities said a security protocol was activated because of a bomb threat on the flight, parts of the airport were cordoned off, and police, firefighters and bomb disposal teams searched the aircraft, which was carrying 121 passengers and crew. No explosives were found, and the passengers were evacuated while the checks were carried out.
Italy saw two of the seven incidents, both involving Ryanair flights arriving at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. One aircraft had come from Lisbon and the other from Dublin, and both were searched after anonymous warnings alleging explosives on board. The Dublin flight was escorted by the Italian Air Force until it landed, and bomb disposal experts searched both aircraft, their passengers and their luggage, with negative results, before the alerts were cleared.
Bulgaria accounted for the final two flights. Transport Minister Georgi Peev said bomb threats had been made against two aircraft travelling to the capital, Sofia — a Wizz Air flight from Bergamo in Italy carrying 176 passengers, and a Ryanair flight from Dublin carrying 186 passengers. Neither aircraft was diverted, both landed safely, and inspections found no explosive devices on board.
The seven threats followed a similar incident a day earlier. On Monday, a Wizz Air flight from London Luton to Sofia was diverted to Budapest in Hungary after a mid-flight bomb threat, escorted by a Hungarian military fighter jet, and searched at Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport, where nothing suspicious was found and the aircraft soon resumed operations. That sequence — eight threatened flights in two days, across six countries — is what has drawn the attention of aviation security specialists, who say threats against several aircraft in such a short period are unusual.
Officials have been careful about what they will and will not say about a connection between the incidents. The BBC reported that, while officially there is no link between them, authorities from various countries will co-operate to assess whether this was a co-ordinated attack designed to disrupt airspace. AFP reported that there was no claim of responsibility and that officials did not point fingers of blame. The UK government described Tuesday’s incidents as malicious hoax threats, and said a flight may be asked to divert if the credibility of a threat requires it.
For the passengers involved, the day meant delay, evacuation and, in Warsaw’s case, a bus journey between airports, rather than danger from an actual device. Hundreds of people were affected across the seven flights, and airports in Warsaw, Rome, Murcia and Sofia all activated emergency procedures that are designed to treat every threat as real until it is proven otherwise. Airlines and airport authorities are required to follow those procedures even when, as on Tuesday, every search comes back negative.
What happens next is an investigation rather than a single answer. Police and security agencies in several countries will compare the wording, timing and origin of the threats, and will look at whether Monday’s Luton–Sofia threat belongs to the same pattern as Tuesday’s seven. Until that work is done, the confirmed facts are narrower than the speculation: seven flights were threatened, seven were searched, one airport was briefly closed, one flight was escorted by fighter jets, and no explosives were found anywhere. Whether the episode was a co-ordinated campaign or a cluster of copycat hoaxes is the question investigators must now resolve, and travellers across Europe will be watching for any further threats in the days ahead.
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