By Sumayya
MILAN — Several airplanes in Europe made emergency landings on Thursday after changing their paths because of bomb warnings, state officials said. These events followed fake bomb warnings earlier this week that caused searches, path changes, and in one situation, a military jet escort.
More than twelve flights from cities including Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan, and Warsaw were confirmed to have been targeted with bomb warnings. Most changed their paths to other airports for emergency landings, while others landed safely at their planned destinations. So far, checks have not found any dangerous or suspicious items.
Such warnings are not new, but these latest events come during a time of increased global political tension and other disruptions, like attacks on supermarket cooling systems, illegal drone movements in Europe, and mysterious triggers to warning phone apps. Officials have warned that mixed types of threats are common.
Czech police stated that searches of another four airplanes that landed in Prague after being targeted by bomb warnings found nothing dangerous. They have not given specific points on where those flights started.
Earlier, a flight from Dublin to Rome was forced to land at a military air base in western France because of a bomb warning, the French prime minister’s office shared. The flight landed safely at the base in Evreux in Normandy, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office stated. All 151 passengers and six crew workers were safe, and military bomb disposal teams were checking the airplane, the office expressed.
It added that it was watching the setup in real time. No other details were given out right away.
Officials Report General Threats to Several Airports
A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed at its destination, where checks found no dangerous or suspicious items, the airline stated. A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely in Bucharest following a bomb warning, airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu shared.
A Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome landed safely at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport around 9:30 a.m., guided by Italian air force fighter jets, according to an airport worker with knowledge of the situation. The worker spoke on condition of hidden identity because they were not allowed to talk publicly.
A bomb warning sent by email had been received, and safety check steps by police bomb experts were completed, with no explosives found, the worker shared.
A flight to Warsaw landed in Vienna following an email to Polish officials containing a general threat, said Stefan Loidl, a police spokesman in the Lower Austria area. Nothing was found, and the airplane went on to Warsaw.
He stated there was also a general threat to Vienna Airport regarding four other flights, which he refused to name, but airport operations were not stopped.
Polish officials checked a LOT flight that was just about to leave from Warsaw to Paris on Thursday morning after a threat was reported at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, said airport spokesman Piotr Rudzki. No real threat was found in the end. One runway at Chopin airport was closed for a short time while officials did standard safety steps.
Three Ryanair flights traveling to Sofia, Bulgaria, had to make emergency landings because of bomb warnings on board. Two of the flights, one from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the other from Madrid, landed safely at Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport, airport officials told reporters. The third Sofia-bound flight, traveling from London’s Stansted Airport to Sofia, was forced to change its path and landed safely at the airport in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-biggest city, Plovdiv Airport chief Krassimir Peshev stated.
Fake Warnings Caused Similar Searches Earlier This Week
Several flights across Europe received fake bomb warnings earlier this week that caused searches, path changes, and in one situation, an escort by the Italian air force until landing, officials shared.
The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air, and Ryanair. The fake warnings came after a plane traveling to Bulgaria changed its course to Hungary after getting a similar bomb warning while flying in the air. No person was hurt.
