LAGOS NOVEMBER 15TH (NEWSRANGERS)-At least 18 aircraft across Europe have been targeted by bomb threats – the second incident on this scale this week, which the UK has called a “malicious hoax”.
Flights bound for Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Poland and Romania were affected, including an Aer Lingus plane from Dublin to Rome which was forced to divert to a military air base in France.
Italian fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome, where it landed as scheduled. No explosives have been found during searches. EasyJet said two of its flights from Newcastle and Glasgow were met by Czech police after arriving in Prague as a “precautionary measure”.
It is not clear of the incidents are related.
Two days ago, eight European flights, including two from the UK, were targeted by suspected bomb threats. No explosives were found on any of the planes after searches.
UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander described Thursday’s incidents as “malicious hoax threats.”
She said the government was taking “these threats seriously”, stressing that there were “established processes for dealing with hoax and malicious threats”.
A UK government spokesperson later said the threats reported “in the early hours” of the day had been “resolved”, without giving any further details.
The airport authorities in Italy’s capital Rome said the hoax threat against two inbound flights received on Thursday had come by email.
The warnings were signed on behalf of a group or individual calling themselves “Fighters of the Male State”, claiming to be targeting a “feminist regime” and wanting to “make our mark on history”.
They threatened to “turn the skies red” with explosions.
These details were first reported by Italian media and then confirmed to the BBC by Aeroporti di Roma, which manages both of the city airports.
The following flights were targeted by threats on Thursday:
- An Aer Lingus flight EI402 from Dublin to Rome diverted to Normandy this morning as a security precaution”, the airline said, adding that it landed safely and it was working to “re-accommodate customers to their final destination as soon as possible”.
- Two Finnair flights which departed Finland’s capital, Helsinki, landed at their destinations as normal, the airline said. One was escorted into Rome’s Fiumicino airport by Italian Air Force fighter jets, Aeroporti di Roma told the BBC, while the other landed in Vienna, Austria
- Wizz Air said two flights which departed Milan, northern Italy, were affected – one was heading to Warsaw, Poland before diverting to Vienna; the other landed safely at Bucharest’s Henri Coandă Airport, with teams inspecting the aircraft
- Polish airline LOT flight from Warsaw to Brussels, Belgium, landed as planned – the airline said “no suspicious items were found”. Another LOT flight from Warsaw to Paris was stopped on the runway before take-off and the plane and baggage underwent a security screening, with no hazardous items found
- Three Ryanair flights have landed in Bulgaria, according to Bulgarian media – one from Copenhagen and another from Madrid landed in the capital Sofia, while a third coming from London bound for Sofia landed in Plovdiv. The flights were escorted by Bulgarian air force fighter jets
- No explosives were found on four flights which landed in Prague, Czech police said. EasyJet later said its flights from Newcastle and Glasgow were among those affected due to a “security related matter”. The company added that “passengers on both flights disembarked normally”
- Aegean Airlines said it “was informed of a bomb threat” concerning two of its flights from Thessaloniki in Greece to Milan, and also from Athens to Vienna. “Following the completion of the required procedures and the confirmation that the threat was unfounded, both flights departed from the respective airports,” the company said
- A Ryanair flight from Porto in Portugal landed safely in Milan as planned, with bomb disposal experts checking them on arrival, Italy’s Ansa news agency reported
- Spain’s airport authority said it had received bomb threats affecting three flights at Madrid airport, but any threat was ruled out following inspections. Iberia later said two of its flights – Milan-Madrid and Rome-Madrid – were affected. It was not clear whether the third plane was the above reported Ryanair Madrid to Sofia flight.
Philip Baum, professor of aviation security at the University of Coventry, said the industry “faces multiple bomb threats every single day” but he had been “surprised” by this week’s incidents.
A flight is diverted “only when the threat is credible and the authorities believe there is a potential of explosive device on board”, he said.
He said the concern was that “if you issue enough hoax threats, then complacency could set in and a real threat could be ignored – or they could be a diversion”.
Marco Chan, an aviation expert at Kingston University, told the BBC the threats were “most likely a hoax, but the system is right to treat it as real”.
He said they were being viewed by some experts as “possibly part of a pattern of cheap, deniable disruption” to air travel.
Hoaxes can also come from copycats, he said, but “three days of incidents is too small a sample to separate coordination from contagion”.
On Tuesday, seven planes were searched after bomb threats were made.
On Monday, a Wizz Air flight travelling from London Luton Airport to Sofia was escorted by a Hungarian fighter jet to Budapest after a mid-air bomb threat.
BBC NEWS
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