Latest: The bomb threat campaign expanded on Friday from flights to media organisations in Ireland and the UK. Irish public broadcaster RTE said its buildings had been evacuated after a bomb threat and its output fell back to mostly pre-recorded programmes, while other Irish media organisations took security measures and UK broadcaster Sky said it had received a security threat. An RTE reporter said the group claiming Friday’s threats was the same one that had sent the threats to airlines earlier in the week. The timing adds pressure on Dublin, which holds the rotating EU presidency and hosts a high level meeting of EU leaders in two days. Prime Minister Micheal Martin called the developments worrying and said police and the Defence Forces were investigating who was behind the threats. Deputy Prime Minister Simon Harris said it was not yet known whether an individual or a coordinated effort was responsible, and called it a serious and evolving situation. Flights were hit again on Friday: police in Denmark and Czechia responded to threats that proved false, a Tarom flight from Prague to Bucharest landed at its destination before its threat was deemed false, and Copenhagen police attended the airport for a second day running, reporting no danger to passengers and no disruption to flights. More than two dozen flights have now been affected this week.
Earlier: Bomb threats disrupted passenger flights across Europe for the third time in a week on Thursday, forcing diversions, emergency landings and military escorts. The most serious incident involved Aer Lingus flight EI402 from Dublin to Rome, which was diverted to the Evreux air base in northern France under escort from French fighter jets after a threat was received. The office of French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said all 151 passengers and six crew members were taken to safety while bomb disposal teams inspected the aircraft.
In Italy, a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome was escorted into Rome Fiumicino by Italian Air Force jets and landed normally, and two flights, from Lisbon and Dublin, were searched at Fiumicino after potential bomb threats, according to airport operator ADR. A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Warsaw was diverted to Vienna. Flights from Copenhagen and Madrid landed in Sofia and a flight from London landed in Plovdiv in Bulgaria, and a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw landed at Brussels Airport amid a reported threat.
No explosives have been found on any aircraft in this week’s waves. Reporting counts more than 20 hoax threats since Monday, at least seven of them involving Ryanair, with low cost carriers and flights to or from Bulgaria, Czechia and Italy mainly targeted. The UK government has described the incidents as malicious hoaxes. Thursday’s alerts followed a series on Tuesday that targeted at least seven flights and a cruise ship, which this site covered on November 3 when flights were inspected in Poland and Spain.
No government has publicly attributed the campaign, and it remained unclear whether Thursday’s incidents were linked to each other or to the earlier waves. The operational pattern, emailed threats naming specific flights, fighter escorts in at least three countries and repeated airport searches, imposes real costs and security exposure even though every alert so far has proved false. Status: reported, with the French diversion and passenger figures confirmed by the French prime minister’s office.