The latest:
An Aer Lingus Airbus A320 from Dublin to Rome squawked the 7700 emergency code over France and was diverted to Évreux air base, roughly 100 kilometres west of Paris, with 151 passengers and six crew aboard. AFP reported at least 12 threats disrupted European air traffic Thursday. Italian fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight into Rome the same morning.
Details:
- France: Aer Lingus confirmed flight EI402 landed safely after what it called a precautionary security diversion. The office of French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said all 151 passengers and six crew were brought to safety and that a military bomb-disposal team was dispatched to search the aircraft. Results of the inspection were not announced.
- Bulgaria: Three Ryanair flights made unscheduled landings. Flights from Copenhagen and Madrid landed at Sofia’s Vasil Levski airport, the interior minister said in remarks carried by bTV. A third from London Stansted was diverted to Plovdiv, according to airport head Krasimir Pishev. The transport ministry later said checks found nothing unusual.
- Italy: Air force jets escorted a Finnair flight from Helsinki until it landed at Rome Fiumicino around 9:30 a.m., an airport official said on condition of anonymity. The official said the threat arrived by email and police explosives experts found nothing. Airport management said operations were not disrupted. Two more flights landed safely at Milan Malpensa, ANSA reported.
- Czech Republic: Czech police said four aircraft bound for Prague received bomb threats and that officers prepared for the landings, though they initially rated the threats’ credibility as low. A police spokesman told news agency CTK that searches of all four found no explosives and ended without injuries. Police did not disclose where the flights originated.
- Poland and Belgium: LOT Polish Airlines said its Warsaw–Brussels service landed safely after a security alert, with no dangerous or suspicious material found. A LOT flight to Paris was stopped as it headed for takeoff at Warsaw Chopin, spokesman Piotr Rudzki said, and one runway was briefly closed while standard procedures ran.
- Austria and Romania: A Warsaw-bound aircraft landed in Vienna after Polish authorities received a vaguely worded email threat, Lower Austria police spokesman Stefan Loidl said; nothing was found and the plane continued. Bucharest airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu said a Wizz Air flight from Milan with 182 passengers and seven crew landed safely; Romanian intelligence said the alert was unconfirmed.
- Tuesday’s wave: At least seven flights received bomb threats two days earlier, with two each bound for Warsaw, Sofia and Rome and one for Murcia, Spain. All landed safely and no devices were found. Modlin airport closed temporarily after a London–Warsaw LOT flight carrying 181 people, including Jewish students from a London school, was diverted there.
- Cruise ship: The same day, a report claimed a bomb was attached to the hull of the Israeli cruise ship Crown Iris, operated by Mano Shipping, while docked at the Greek island of Syros. All 940 passengers were disembarked and security forces searched with divers and sniffer dogs. Nothing suspicious was found and passengers reboarded.
- The attribution: No country has formally accused anyone over the threats. European officials have blamed Russia and Iran for what they describe as hybrid attacks and sabotage; Moscow and Tehran deny running any such campaign, and no evidence has linked either to the aviation threats.
- Expert reading: Eliran Almog, chief executive of aviation cybersecurity firm Cyviation, said repeated threats can disrupt operations while revealing how airlines, airports and national authorities respond. He noted the threats coincide with cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems across Europe, saying disruptions to essential services “create economic costs and can undermine public confidence.”
Background:
Bomb hoaxes against aviation are not new, but this week’s cluster lands alongside attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions over European airports and unexplained alert-app activations. Authorities have warned repeatedly about the spread of hybrid threats.
Between the lines:
Some experts have suggested the hoaxes fit a pattern of cheap, deniable sabotage, pointing to the parallel supermarket refrigeration hacks. The operational logic is visible in the response itself: a single email triggered fighter jets over Italy, a military base landing in France and runway closures in Warsaw, at near-zero cost to whoever sent it. Czech police rated credibility low and still mobilised, because no authority can afford to ignore one.
What’s next
Watch for results of the French bomb-disposal inspection at Évreux, any formal attribution by an EU government, and whether a third wave follows the Tuesday-Thursday pattern. Airline and airport bodies may also seek changes to threat-response protocols.
